THE SUPERB MOMENT
want to have you right, always, always, beyond anything, anything I could say!"
The words poured into his ear in a half whisper, her breath sweet and close upon his face, like the touching of lips. He adored the humility, the heavenly abnegation, the stooping from her wrong and forgiving of transgression—the beautiful fit attitude for women. Since his manhood had stiffened in him he had not known tears; but now he felt them forcing up into his eyes. "My dear, you'll have to take me as I am, an ordinary fellow."
She sighed, and the sigh seemed to take possession of her whole body, shivering from breast to fingertips. "But, if you had only told me first!"
"Yes, but if I had? Why, you would never have let me come near it!"
"Ah, no! and that would have been so much better! It would have saved us all this suffering. It would have saved him too."
"Yes—but—"
"I know what you are going to say." She leaned her head back to look up earnestly in his face. "But it will not be the same with him again any more than it will be the same with us. There'll be that difference always with him for being caught once, even if always afterward he is free."
377
