He could not let her go--it was impossible. It seemed that he had never understood his need of her, his love for her, until now that he had brought her to this supreme test of self-revelation. She had wanted to kill him, yes, to kill herself--but how could he ever have believed that she would stoop to another method of retaliation? As she stood before him the light in her eyes still wet with tears--transfigured her.
"I love you, Janet," he said. "I want you to marry me."
"You don't understand," she answered. "You never did. If I had married you, I'd feel just the same--but it isn't really as bad as if we had been married."
"Not as bad!" he exclaimed.
"If we were married, you'd think you had rights over me," she explained, slowly. "Now you haven't any, I can go away. I couldn't live with you.
I know what happened to me, I've thought it all out, I wanted to get away from the life I was leading--I hated it so, I was crazy to have a chance, to see the world, to get nearer some of the beautiful things I knew were there, but couldn't reach.... And you came along. I did love you, I would have done anything for you--it was only when I saw that you didn't really love me that I began to hate you, that I wanted to get away from you, when I saw that you only wanted me until you should get tired of me.
That's your nature, you can't help it. And it would have been the same if we were married, only worse, I couldn't have stood it any more than I can now--I'd have left you. You say you'll marry me now, but that's because you're sorry for me--since I've said I'm not going to trouble you any more. You'll be glad I've gone. You may--want me now, but that isn't love. When you say you love me, I can't believe you."
"You must believe me! And the child, Janet,--our child--"
"If the world was right," she said, "I could have this child and nobody would say anything. I could support it--I guess I can anyway. And when I'm not half crazy I want it. Maybe that's the reason I couldn't do what I tried to do just now. It's natural for a woman to want a child--especially a woman like me, who hasn't anybody or anything."
Ditmar's state of mind was too complicated to be wholly described. As the fact had been gradually brought home to him that she had not come as a supplicant, that even in her misery she was free, and he helpless, there revived in him wild memories of her body, of the kisses he had wrung from her--and yet this physical desire was accompanied by a realization of her personality never before achieved. And because he had hitherto failed to achieve it, she had escaped him. This belated, surpassing glimpse of what she essentially was, and the thought of the child their child--permeating his passion, transformed it into a feeling hitherto unexperienced and unimagined. He hovered over her, pitifully, his hands feeling for her, yet not daring to touch her.
"Can't you see that I love you?" he cried, "that I'm ready to marry you now, to-night. You must love me, I won't believe that you don't after--after all we have been to each other."
But even then she could not believe. Something in her, made hard by the intensity of her suffering, refused to melt. And her head was throbbing, and she scarcely heard him.
"I can't stay any longer," she said, getting to her feet. "I can't bear it."
"Janet, I swear I'll care for you as no woman was ever cared for. For God's sake listen to me, give me a chance, forgive me!" He seized her arm; she struggled, gently but persistently, to free herself from his hold.
"Let me go, please." All the passionate anger had gone out of her, and she spoke in a monotone, as one under hypnosis, dominated by a resolution which, for the present at least, he was powerless to shake.
"But to-morrow?" he pleaded. "You'll let me see you to-morrow, when you've had time to think it over, when you realize that I love you and want you, that I haven't meant to be cruel--that you've misjudged me--thought I was a different kind of a man. I don't blame you for that, I guess something happened to make you believe it. I've got enemies. For the sake of the child, Janet, if for nothing else, you'll come back to me! You're--you're tired tonight, you're not yourself. I don't wonder, after all you've been through. If you'd only come to me before! God knows what I've suffered, too!"
"Let me go, please," she repeated, and this time, despairingly, he obeyed her, a conviction of her incommuy nica,bility overwhelming him. He turned and, fumbling with the key, unlocked the door and opened it.
"I'll see you to-morrow," he faltered once more, and watched her as she went through the darkened outer room until she gained the lighted hallway beyond and disappeared. Her footsteps died away into silence. He was trembling. For several minutes he stood where she had left him, tortured by a sense of his inability to act, to cope with this, the great crisis of his life, when suddenly the real significance of that strange last look in her eyes was borne home to him. And he had allowed her to go out into the streets alone! Seizing his hat and coat, he fairly ran out of the office and down the stairs and across the bridge.
"Which way did that young lady go?" he demanders of the sergeant.
"Why--ug West Street, Mr. Ditmar."
He remembered where Filhnore Street was; he had, indeed, sought it out one evening in the hope of meeting her. He hurried toward it now, his glance strained ahead to catch sight of her figure under a lamp. But he reached Fillmore Street without overtaking her, and in the rain he stood gazing at the mean houses there, wondering in which of them she lived, and whether she had as yet come home....
