Do you remember that? I don't suppose you really knew when you said
it, how much you were saving yourself from me. I wouldn't suggest
that credit were due to me for a moment--it isn't. It was just the
same as telling a man to do a brave act, when only the doing of it
could save his life. I did it because I had to. To be a gentleman
is often one chance in a lifetime, and the man who doesn't take it
is not fit for hanging. Birth has nothing to do with it. You offered
me my chance--I took it--that's all. But now you want to deprive me
of my one consolation. You want to refuse that bangle. I refuse to
take it back."
Sally turned and faced him. Her lips were set--her eyes had strange
lights in them. She looked--as she felt--upon the scaffold of
indecision, with the noose of fate about her neck.
"Oh, it is so hard! Why is it so hard?" she whispered.
"Why is what so hard?"
"This--all this."
He laughed ironically. Either he would not see, or he could not see.
Men may not be so dense as they appear. Sometimes it is a subconscious
cunning that aids them in forcing half the initiative into the hands
of the woman.
"Surely, it can't be so difficult a job to just snap the catch of
that bracelet on your wrist, and forget all about whether I ought
to have given it you or not.
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