human
Conquest saw what I didn't--till it was too late.
gpt
I wish you wouldn't say any more,
human
I don't see why I shouldn't. I'm not going to say anything to shock you. I know you're going to marry Conquest. You told me so before I went away, and----
gpt
I should like to remind you that Mr. Conquest is the best friend you have. When you hear what he's done for you, you will see that you owe him more than you do any man in the world.
human
I know that. I'm the last to forget it. But it can't do any harm to tell the woman--who's going to be his wife--that I owe her even more than I do him.
gpt
It can't do any harm, perhaps; but when I ask you not to----
human
I can't obey you. I shouldn't be a man if I went through life without some expression of my--gratitude; and now's the only time to make it. There are things which I wasn't free to say before, because I was bound to Evie--and which it will soon be too late for you to listen to, because you'll be bound to him. You're not bound to him yet----
gpt
I _am_ bound to him, she said, in a tone in which there were all the regrets he had no reason to divine.
human
I don't know what you think of saying; but whatever it is, I implore you not to say it.
gpt
It's precisely because you don't know that I feel the necessity of telling you. It's something I owe you. It's like a debt. It isn't as if we were just any man and any woman. We're a man and a woman in a very special relation to each other. No matter what happens, nothing can change that. And it isn't as if we were going to live in the same world, in the same way. You will be Conquest's wife--a great lady in New York. I shall be--well, Heaven only knows what I shall be, but nothing that's likely to cross your path again. All the same, it won't hurt you, it wouldn't hurt any woman, however good, to hear what I'm going to tell you. It wouldn't hurt any man--not even Conquest--that it should be said to his wife--in the way that I shall say it. If it could, I wouldn't----
human
Wait a minute, she said, suddenly.
gpt
Let me ask you something. She took a step toward him, though her hand rested still on the back of the chair.
human
If I know it already, she continued, looking him in the eyes,
gpt
I'd rather tell you in my own words, he said, at last;