lived a little in Fanny's intimacy--at a moment when circumstances
helped to bring us extraordinarily close--I understood why you had
done this; why you had let her take what view she pleased of your
failure, your passive acceptance of defeat, rather than let her
suspect the alternative offered you. You couldn't, even with my
permission, betray to any one a hint of my miserable secret, and you
couldn't, for your life's happiness, pay the particular price that I
asked." She leaned toward him in the intense, almost childlike,
effort at full expression. "Oh, we are of different races, with a
different point of honour; but I understand, I see, that you are
good people--just simply, courageously _good!_"

She paused, and then said slowly: "Have I understood you? Have I put
my hand on your motive?"

Durham sat speechless, subdued by the rush of emotion which her
words set free.

"That, you understand, is my question," she concluded with a faint
smile; and he answered hesitatingly: "What can it matter, when the
upshot is something I infinitely regret?"

"Having refused me? Don't!" She spoke with deep seriousness, bending
her eyes full on his: "Ah, I have suffered--suffered! But I have
learned also--my life has been enlarged. You see how I have
understood you both. And that is something I should have been
incapable of a few months ago."

Durham returned her look. "I can't think that you can ever have been
incapable of any generous interpretation."

She uttered a slight exclamation, which resolved itself into a laugh
of self-directed irony.

"If you knew into what language I have always translated life! But
that," she broke off, "is not what you are here to learn."

"I think," he returned gravely, "that I am here to learn the measure
of Christian charity."

She threw him a new, odd look. "Ah, no--but to show it!" she
exclaimed.

"To show it? And to whom?"

She paused for a moment, and then rejoined, instead of answering:
"Do you remember that day I talked with you at Fanny's? The day
after you came back from Italy?"

He made a motion of assent, and she went on: "You asked me then what
return I expected for my service to you, as you called it; and I
answered, the contemplation of your happiness. Well, do you know
what that meant in my old language--the language I was still
speaking then? It meant that I knew there was horrible misery in
store for you, and that I was waiting to feast my eyes on it: that's
all!"