And poor Philip all
the time was determined--cribbed and cabined--by his past,--and now by
his boy. We both know that if he marries anybody it will be Cynthia
Welwyn; and that he would be happier and less lonely if he married her.
But so long as your life is unsettled he will marry nobody. He remembers
that your mother entrusted you to him in the firm belief that, in his
uncertainty about his wife, he neither could nor would marry anybody. So
that for these two years, at any rate, he holds himself absolutely bound
to his compact with her and you."
"And the moral of that is--" said Helena, flushing.
"Marry me!--Nothing simpler. Then the compact falls--and at one stroke
you bring two men into port."
The conflict of expressions passing through her features showed her
shaken. He waited.
"Very well, Geoffrey--" she said at last, with a long, quivering breath,
as though some hostile force rent her and came out.
"If you want me so much--take me!"
But as she spoke she became aware of the lover in him ready to spring.
She drew back instantly from his cry of joy, and his outstretched arms.
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