She didn't order him away in tragic tones, as he almost
expected; she didn't overwhelm him with an icy torrent of reproach and
argument. Instead, as she stood there against her halo of black, the long
regard of her white face fixed on him, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
She didn't acquiesce for a moment, or, for a moment, imply him anything but
miserably, pitiably wrong; but in a voice from which every trace of anger
had faded she said: "Oh Jack, how you hurt me!"
The shock of his surprise was so great that his cheeks flamed as though she
had struck him. Answering tears sprang to his eyes. He stammered, could not
speak at first, then got out: "Forgive me. I'd no business to say it. It's
lovely of you, Imogen, not just to send me off."
She felt her triumph, her half-triumph, at once. "Why, Jack, if you think
it, why should I forgive you for saying what, to you, seems the truth? You
have forgotten me, Jack, almost altogether; but don't forget that truth is
the thing that I care most for. If you must think these things of me--and
not only of me, of a dearer self, for I understand all that you meant--I
must accept the sorrow and pain of it. When we care for people we must
accept suffering because of them. Perhaps, in time, you may come to see
differently."
He knew, though she made him feel so abashed, that he could take back none
of the "things" he thought; but as she had smiled faintly at him he
answered with a wavering smile, putting out his hand to hers and holding it
while he said: "Shall we agree, then, to say nothing more about it! To be
as good friends--as the truth will let us?"
He had never hurt her as at that moment of gentleness, compunction, and
inflexibility, and thought, for a moment, was obscured by a rush of bitter
pain that could almost have cast her upon his breast, weeping and suppliant
for all that his words shut the door on--perhaps forever.
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