It is hard to play
such a part well. Even the least sensitive of men, conscious of their
own cruelty, will seek to end it as quickly as may be. Wherefore,
how could he be expected to see the good gained by staying and
talking? What good, in God's name, did talking do? With the agony
prolonged, the strain drawn out, how were they--either of them--to
benefit? Here, indeed, is a judgment of the head. But it was with
her heart alone that Sally craved for its continuance. It was the
last she was to see of him; the last time that he would be in her
bedroom where all the passionate associations of her life would
always lie buried. Can it be wondered that she would willingly have
dragged the misery of it through all that night, if only to keep him
for the moments as they passed, by her side?
Yet he was driven to play the mean part--the part for which there
never will be--perhaps never should be--any sympathy. And he must
play it with the best grace he could. A man is always a spectator
to his own actions; a woman, in her emotions--never. So women lose
their self-respect more easily than men.
But Traill was not the type to allow these abstract considerations
to worry him.
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