“Because that wasn't you, Hugh, that wasn't your real self. Do you suppose it mattered to me whether you went to Harvard with the others? Oh, I was foolish too, I know. I shouldn't have said what I did. But what is the use of regrets?” she exclaimed. “We've both run after the practical gods, and the others have hidden their faces from us. It may be that we are not to blame, either of us, that the practical gods are too strong. We've learned to love and worship them, and now we can't do without them.” “We can try, Nancy,” I pleaded. “No,” she answered in a low voice, “that's the difference between you and me. I know myself better than you know yourself, and I know you better.” She smiled again. “Unless we could have it all back again, I shouldn't want any of it. You do not love me--” I started once more to protest. “No, no, don't say it!” she cried. “You may think you do, just this moment, but it's only because--you've been moved. And what you believe you want isn't me, it's what I was. But I'm not that any more,--I'm simply recalling that, don't you see? And even then you wouldn't wish me, now, as I was. That sounds involved, but you must understand. You want a woman who will be wrapped up in your career, Hugh, and yet who will not share it,--who will devote herself body and soul to what you have become. A woman whom you can shape. And you won't really love her, but only just so much of her as may become the incarnation of you. Well, I'm not that kind of woman. I might have been, had you been different. I'm not at all sure. Certainly I'm not that kind now, even though I know in my heart that the sort of career you have made for yourself, and that I intend to make for myself is all dross. But now I can't do without it.” “And yet you are going to marry Hambleton Durrett!” I said. She understood me, although I regretted my words at once. “Yes, I am going to marry him.” There was a shade of bitterness, of defiance in her voice. “Surely you are not offering me the--the other thing, now. Oh, Hugh!” “I am willing to abandon it all, Nancy.” “No,” she said, “you're not, and I'm not. What you can't see and won't see is that it has become part of you. Oh, you are successful, you will be more and more successful. And you think I should be somebody, as your wife, Hugh, more perhaps, eventually, than I shall be as Hambleton's. But I should be nobody, too. I couldn't stand it now, my dear. You must realize that as soon as you have time to think it over. We shall be friends.” The sudden gentleness in her voice pierced me through and through. She held out her hand. Something in her grasp spoke of a resolution which could not be shaken. “And besides,” she added sadly, “I don't love you any more, Hugh. I'm mourning for something that's gone. I wanted to have just this one talk with you. But we shan't mention it again,--we'll close the book.”...