"She is different," argued Sir Richmond.
"But you are the same," said the shadow of Martin with
Martin's unsparing return. "Your love has never been a
steadfast thing. It comes and goes like the wind. You are an
extravagantly imperfect lover. But I have learnt to accept
you, as people accept the English weather. . . . Never in all
your life have you loved, wholly, fully, steadfastly--as
people deserve to be loved--,not your mother nor your father,
not your wife nor your children, nor me, nor our child, nor
any living thing. Pleasant to all of us at times--at times
bitterly disappointing. You do not even love this work of
yours steadfastly, this work to which you sacrifice us all in
turn. You do not love enough. That is why you have these
moods and changes, that is why you have these lassitudes. So
it is you are made. . . .
"And that is why you must not take this brave young life, so
much simpler and braver than your own, and exalt it--as you
can do--and then fail it, as you will do. . . . "
Sir Richmond's mind and body lay very still for a time.
"Should I fail her? . . ."
For a time Martin Leeds passed from the foreground of his
mind.
He was astonished to think how planless, instinctive and
unforeseeing his treatment of Miss Grammont had been. It had
been just a blind drive to get hold of her and possess
her. . . .
Suddenly his passion for her became active in its defence
again.
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