“Tell me this, Damastor—do you think I’m a bad woman? Are you sympathising at all with what you said would be your mother’s view? Do you regret our love together?”

“Oh, Adraste, how can you ask me that!”

“How can I, dear? Because you suggest the question. You don’t speak as you did when you wanted me first, when you said we’d face life together, when you were sure the only thing that mattered was that we should belong to each other. You weren’t so prudent then—at least, you weren’t so prudent for me, were you? I’m not saying I didn’t want to love you—I mean that you were your very noblest then, when you took me, took your whole life in your own hands, I thought, faced any risk at all, of poverty, even of your mother’s anger, in order that you might be yourself. Would you do it again, Damastor, if it were all still to be done?”

“Adraste, I love you so, what you say makes me feel a bit hurt, as though you were accusing me of unfaithfulness. Could I make it clearer to you than I have made it, how much I want you all to myself, our one life together? I can’t see how I’ve done anything to disappoint you.”

“In a way you have, Damastor, or I think you have; all I want is for you to prove me mistaken. I thought you knew your mind when you asked me to give myself—I thought you were giving yourself too. With such a man I could face anything. You can’t know how utterly I admired you, Damastor. I knew your mother didn’t like me, but we agreed we had the right to make our own choice and live our own lives. I imagined that you would go to her and simply say, with complete affection and respect, that you and I loved each other, that it was all settled; and you’d say it in some wonderfully wise words, so that your mother, even if she was sorry, would see it our way, or if she didn’t, you would have the comfort of your own frankness and sincerity. Damastor, I’m disappointed that you do nothing at all—just wait. It isn’t so brave nor so wise as I expected you to be, and at times I fear you are less sure of yourself than you were. Did I misjudge you, I ask? Or did you love me once, and have you changed?”

“How much I love you, Adraste, I’ll give my life to showing. If I’ve delayed, it isn’t because I’m a coward. It will take courage to face my mother, but when I’m sure it’s the right time I’ll speak to her. Have you told Helen?”

“Not a word.”

“Does she suspect?”