He wanted to
get to the woman beneath it all, knowing that the woman was there.
So he made for deep water, guiding her through the shoals. Before
they had finished their second course, she was telling him about Mr.
Arthur.
"And you don't love him?" he said.
"No."
"Respect him?"
She paused. The pause answered him. The tension of the moment lifted.
"Yes. I respect him. I know he's honourable. He must be reliable.
After all he's offering me everything."
You would have thought, to hear her, that the matter was yet in the
balance, swaying uncertainly before it recorded the weight. There
is the instinct of the woman in that. She felt the shadow of his
apprehension; knew that she raised her value in his eyes by the
seeming presence of debate. Yet none realized better than she, that
Mr. Arthur had been stripped of all possibility now. The fateful
comparison had been made--the comparison which most women make in
the decision of such momentous issues--one man against another.
Their emotions are the agate upon which the scales must swing. In
favour of the man before her, they swung with ponderous obviousness.
"Then you'll marry him?" said Traill.
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