"Victor," she said, after a minute, and the warm, white uncertain
hand sought mine again and held it, "I have been working hard since
you left, and the canvas is nearly finished, but I am willing to
relinquish it for the present, to let it go. In all this time you
have been away from me I have been slowly learning that one's own
life and one's own life's happiness is of more worth than these
abstract ideas, than one's work or talent or anything else. I have
been feeling that you and I are letting day after day go by and are
working for a to-morrow that for us may never come. Is this your
philosophy?"
I looked down on her as she clasped my hand and drew it up to her
breast, her eyes were on mine, and all my mental perceptions were
blinded and forced down under the pressure of the physical senses.
"Take me into your life, Victor. I swear I won't interfere with your
work. Let me sit somewhere beside you all day long while you write,
and let me lie all night long watching you while you write, if you
like! Oh, do let me! do speak to me?"
She pressed my hand in, convulsively, upon her breast, until it
seemed to be in the midst of tremulous warmth, close upon the
throbbing heart itself. I could not think. Thought seemed slipping
from me. I felt sinking deeper each minute into the quicksand of
desire. Nothing seemed clear any longer.
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