As always, his instinct warned him of his moment. His hold on her arm tightened. "Don’t go!" he said. "Let’s have just this hour! Angelica, imagine--if we had a little room here, some little place all to ourselves! And I’d wait at home for you, and write and dream about you, and long for you all day, while you sat there in your shop, bending your dear, dark head over your work. You’d work for me, until I grew famous--and then I’d make a queen--an empress of you, my beloved woman!" "Don’t begin that!" she entreated. "We’ve had such a nice time!" "But think of it! Think of sitting together in the dark, in our poor little room, our arms about each other, weary, harassed, finding our joy and consolation only in those hours together--living just for that! Oh, Angelica! Angelica! Hasn’t this long, weary parting been just an interlude? Can’t we begin again? Take me back! Forgive me and love me and make me over. Make me what you wish. Come back to me! Come back to me! I need you so terribly!" "Don’t!" she begged again, profoundly troubled. "I don’t know how to tell you--how to make you see how useless it is. I can’t--I don’t feel as I used to. All that is dead. I’ll never care that way for any one again." "For me you can!" She shook her head dumbly. "Vincent, you’ve done me enough harm. For God’s sake, let me alone! Now, just when I’m struggling up out of the mud, you come and try to pull me down. Right here, before this very house----” She stopped, unable to explain, even to suggest to him all that Fine Feathers meant to her, how it was her honour, her dignity, friendship, self-respect, ambition. "You see how I’ve changed," she said, "and how I’ve improved. Why don’t you try to help me?" "Changed?" he said, stooping to look into her face. "Not a bit of it, Angelica! You’re nothing but my Angelica, my beloved girl, the mother of my child!" "Oh, stop!" she cried. "Oh, it’s too horrible!" "It’s too horrible that you should repudiate me. Angelica, let us take back our child and start again, a decent, honest life. You talk of improving yourself; why don’t you think of improving me--of helping your poor little child? Let’s help each other!" "You wouldn’t do it! You know you wouldn’t!" she cried. The tears were rolling down her cheeks unnoticed. "You’ve never even seen the poor little thing, or asked about him." "But I’ve thought of him! I’ve been haunted by that little son--yours and mine. Oh, Angelica, don’t, don’t for God’s sake, turn away from me! Polly will set me free, and I’ll marry you and we will have our child again." She felt as if she were sinking in a whirlpool. An intolerable pity for this man confused her, overwhelmed her. Her troubled glance, leaving his beloved face, fell upon the ridiculous peacock with its jaunty little paper hat--fit image for her nightmare; and a little trickle of cold, sane daylight began to filter into her darkened and suffering mind. "Angelica! Let us begin again, you and I and our little son----”