“You have never understood me, Marcia. I can’t blame you. I have never understood myself. I am honest with you. I have always been. Perhaps it was expecting too much, dear, that you should be able to stand that.... Marcia, I care for you now, as I did before, more than for any woman in the world.” She dropped her eyes and began to finger the embroidery of her chair. “I go through strange tides, Marcia. I cannot help that. Most men have hypocrisy to hide these ebbs. Most women have passiveness. I have neither. So I suffer.... Marcia,” he went on, “I do not want to lose you. But also I do not want to hurt you. Can’t I have you, without hurting you, Marcia! It was because I had not answered that question, that I forced myself away, forced myself cool.” “What do you mean, Tom?” He took a chair and brought it beside hers and seated himself. With a great calm he heard himself say: “Marcia--will you marry me?” “I should love to, Tom.” “We could manage. I might even gradually start to pay off your Mamma’s debts. A little flat. Two weeks at the seashore. A cook....” He spoke very seriously, with each item stroked the slender pearly hand he had taken. Marcia withdrew it. “Don’t be a silly, Tom.” He jumped up. He drew her after him: he held her close, kissed her throat. “It is not impossible. I want you, Marcia.” “You have had me.” “I have never had you.” He thrust her away and walked to where she first had faced him. “You know I have never had you, Marcia. How can you--oh----!” He threw up his arms and stopped. Marcia came closer. “Tom,” she said, “what do you really want of me?” “Yourself....” He paused. “But without the sense that I am harming you. Yourself, without restraint.” “Why did you leave me, Tom?” “I’ll tell you. Despise me, if you will. I’ll tell you. Because I had a guilty conscience. Because I thought not alone of your future but of your mother. Because I seemed unable to be either your lover or your husband.” She smiled. “You’re not the sort of man one should marry.” “Unfortunately I lack qualifications.” He put bitterness into his voice. She was sure--and glad--she had hurt him. “But civilized standards have nothing to do with love. I could love a woman, if only she were in a civilized way disposed of, so that we could afford the luxury.” Marcia laughed and placed her hand back in his. “Why have you never put things this way before?”