AUSTIN. _You_ only argued that for fear I'd insist on _your_ going to this minister yourself. But in the bottom of your heart you know it was a risk we couldn't afford to run. I've explained everything to him--how such a fine, sweet girl would suffer if he did expose you, and I gave him my word you would be remarried to Ruth at once after the divorce. Of course we both know it's wrong, but we both hope the end justifies the means that removes difficulty number two. GEOFFREY. You're sure about Maggie? AUSTIN. She's signed a paper; she realizes you'll never live with her, and--it's pathetic--she loves you--that girl, too--so much as to give you your freedom--Good Lord! what is it about you weak men that wins women so? What is it in _you_ that has made two women love _you_ to such a self-sacrificing extent? GEOFFREY. [_Half tragic, half comic laugh._] I give it up! AUSTIN. [_Bitterly._] So do I. Well, Maggie is to have six hundred dollars a year. GEOFFREY. Where'll I get it? AUSTIN. We'll talk about that when the time comes. [_He rises._] _Now_ the most important, the most painful, task of all must be done and _you_ must do it. _Not I this time--you!_ GEOFFREY. [_Looking up, frightened._] What? AUSTIN. Ruth Chester landed this morning. GEOFFREY. [_Starting up._] Impossible! [_Rising._ AUSTIN. The moment Maggie signed my paper I cabled Miss Chester to return. You can't go out west and institute proceedings for divorce without her _knowing the whole truth from you_ first! You don't want her to find it out from the newspapers, do you? GEOFFREY. And you want _me_ to tell her? AUSTIN. _To-day._ And to-morrow you start west! GEOFFREY. [_Facing AUSTIN._] I _won't_ tell her! AUSTIN. [_Calmly._] You've got to! Geoffrey. I'd rather shoot myself; do you understand me--I'd rather shoot myself! AUSTIN. That's nothing! That would be decidedly the _easiest_ course out of it, _and_ the most _cowardly_. GEOFFREY. She'll hate me! She'll loathe me! How could she help it at first! But just after a little, if I weren't there, the love she has for me might move her somehow or other--and by degrees perhaps--to forgive-- AUSTIN. I don't deny that you will have to go through a terrible degradation with her--but that is nothing compared with what you deserve. If _you_ tell her, at least the humiliation is secret, locked there between you two, and no one else in the world can ever know what happens; _but_ if you send some one else, and no matter who,--_any one_ else but you _is_ an outsider,--you ask her to make a spectacle of her humiliation, to let a third in as witness to the relations and emotions between you two! It's insulting her _again_! Don't you _see_? [_A pause._ GEOFFREY. Yes, I see! My God! I _must_ tell her myself. AUSTIN. That's right, don't waver, make up your mind and do it--Come! [_Urging him up._ GEOFFREY. [_Hesitates a moment._] And Jinny? AUSTIN. Oh, she'll come round all right; she always does.