"Oh!" she exclaimed. "If I am angry it's because you can say stupid
things like that! Don't you see, Ambo, the very moment things grow
difficult for us you forget to believe in me--begin to act as if I were
a common or garden fool? I'm not, though. Surely you must know in your
heart that everything you're afraid of for me doesn't matter in the
least. What harm could slander or scandal possibly do me, dear? Me, I
mean? I shouldn't like it, of course, because I hate everything stodgy
and _formidablement bete_. But if it happens, I shan't lose much sleep
over it. You're worrying about the wrong things, Ambo; things that don't
even touch our real problem. And the real problem may prove to be the
real tragedy, too."

"Tragedy?" I mumbled.

"Oh, I hope not--I think not! It all depends on whether you care for
freedom; on whether you're really passion's slave. I don't believe you
are."

The words wounded me. I shifted, to look up at, to question, her shadowy
face. "Susan, what do you mean?"

"I suppose I mean that _I'm_ not, Ambo. You're far dearer to me than
anybody else on earth; your happiness, your peace, mean everything to
me. If you honestly can't find life worth while without me--can't--I'll
go with you anywhere; or face the music with you right here. First,
though, I must be sincere with you. I can live away from you, and still
make a life for myself. Except your day-by-day companionship--I'd be
lonely without that, of course--I shouldn't lose anything that seems to
me really worth keeping. Above all, I shouldn't really lose you."

"Susan! You're planning to leave me!"

"But, Ambo--it's only what you've felt to be necessary; what you've been
planning for me!"

"As a duty--at the bitterest possible cost! How different that is! You
not only plan to leave me--I feel that you want to!"

"Yes, I want to. But only if you can understand why."

"I don't understand!"

"Ah, wait, Ambo! You're not speaking for yourself. You're a slave now,
speaking for your master. But it's _you_ I want to talk to!"

I snarled at this. "Why? When you've discovered your mistake so soon!...
You don't love me."

She sighed, deeply unhappy; though my thin-skinned self-esteem wrung
from her sigh a shade of impatience, too.

"If not, dear," she said, "we had better find it out before it's too
late. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps love is something I only guess at
and go wrong about. If love means that I should be utterly lost in you
a