After telling Mr. Powell not to go away the captain remained silent.
Suddenly Mrs. Anthony pushed back her loose hair with a decisive gesture
of her arms and moved still nearer to him. "Here's papa up yet," she
said, but she did not look towards Mr. Smith. "Why is it? And you? I
can't go on like this, Roderick--between you two. Don't."
Anthony interrupted her as if something had untied his tongue.
"Oh yes. Here's your father. And . . . Why not. Perhaps it is just as
well you came out. Between us two? Is that it? I won't pretend I don't
understand. I am not blind. But I can't fight any longer for what I
haven't got. I don't know what you imagine has happened. Something has
though. Only you needn't be afraid. No shadow can touch you--because I
give up. I can't say we had much talk about it, your father and I, but,
the long and the short of it is, that I must learn to live without
you--which I have told you was impossible. I was speaking the truth. But
I have done fighting, or waiting, or hoping. Yes. You shall go."
At this point Mr. Powell who (he confessed to me) was listening with
uncomprehending awe, heard behind his back a triumphant chuckling sound.
It gave him the shudders, he said, to mention it now; but at the time,
except for another chill down the spine, it had not the power to destroy
his absorption in the scene before his eyes, and before his ears too,
because just then Captain Anthony raised his voice grimly. Perhaps he
too had heard the chuckle of the old man.
"Your father has found an argument which makes me pause, if it does not
convince me. No! I can't answer it. I--I don't want to answer it. I
simply surrender. He shall have his way with you--and with me. Only,"
he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal
had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied
to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few
days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said
I could never let you go, I shall let you go."
To the innocent beholder Anthony seemed at this point to become
physically exhausted. My view is that the utter falseness of his, I may
say, aspirations, the vanity of grasping the empty air, had come to him
with an overwhelming force, leaving him disarmed before the other's mad
and sinister sincerity. As he had said himself he could not fight for
what he did not possess; he could not face such a thing as this for the
sake of his mere magnanimity. The normal alone can overcome the
abnormal. He could not even reproach that man over there. "I own myself
beaten," he said in a firmer tone. "You are free. I let you off since I
must."