“Do you really imagine,” he exclaimed, “that I could go on with make-believe—­that I could bring myself to put faith in you again for a moment?”

“I don’t ask you to,” Eve replied, in firmer accents.  “I have lost what little respect you could ever feel for me.  I might have repaid you with honesty—­I didn’t do even that.  Say the worst you can of me, and I shall think still worse of myself.”

The voice overcame him with a conviction of her sincerity, and he gazed at her, marvelling.

“Are you honest now?  Anyone would think so; yet how am I to believe it?”

Eve met his eyes steadily.

“I will never again say one word to you that isn’t pure truth.  I am at your mercy, and you may punish me as you like.”

“There’s only one way in which I can punish you.  For the loss of my respect, or of my love, you care nothing.  If I bring myself to tell Narramore disagreeable things about you, you will suffer a disappointment, and that’s all.  The cost to me will be much greater, and you know it.  You pity yourself.  You regard me as holding you ungenerously by an advantage you once gave me.  It isn’t so at all.  It is I who have been held by bonds I couldn’t break, and from the day when you pretended a love you never felt, all the blame lay with you.”

“What could I do?”

“Be truthful—­that was all.”

“You were not content with the truth.  You forced me to think that I could love you, Only remember what passed between us.”

“Honesty was still possible, when you came to know yourself better.  You should have said to me in so many words:  ’I can’t look forward to our future with any courage; if I marry it must be a man who has more to offer.’  Do you think I couldn’t have endured to hear that?  You have never understood me.  I should have said:  ’Then let us shake hands, and I am your friend to help you all I can.’”

“You say that now——­”

“I should have said it at any time.”

“But I am not so mean as you think me.  If I loved a man I could face poverty with him, much as I hate and dread it.  It was because I only liked you, and could not feel more——­”

“Your love happens to fall upon a man who has solid possessions.”

“It’s easy to speak so scornfully.  I have not pretended to love the man you mean.”

“Yet you have brought him to think that you are willing to marry him.”

“Without any word of love from me.  If I had been free I would have married him—­just because I am sick of the life I lead, and long for the kind of life he offered me.”

“When it’s too late you are frank enough.”

“Despise me as much as you like.  You want the truth, and you shall hear nothing else from me.”

“Well, we get near to understanding each other.  But it astonishes me that you spoilt your excellent chance.  How could you hope to carry through this——­”