"And now, dear, we must talk plainly and calmly. You have seen what my
family is."
"I don't know, Mary, that I can make you understand at all," began
Bennington helplessly. "I can't express it even to myself. Our people
are so different. My training has been so different. All this sort of
thing means so much to us, and so little to you."
"I know exactly," she interrupted. "I have read, and I have lived East.
I can appreciate just how it is. See if I can not read your thoughts.
My family is uneducated. If it becomes your family, your own parents
will be more than grieved, and your friends will have little to do with
you. You have also duties toward your family, as a family. Is that
it?"
"Yes, that is it," answered he, "but there are so many things it does
not say. It seems to me it has come to be a horrible dilemma with me.
If I do what I am afraid is my duty to my family and my people, I will
be unhappy without you forever. And if I follow my heart, then it seems
to me I will wrong myself, and will be unhappy that way. It seems a
choice of just in what manner I will be miserable!" he ended with a
ghastly laugh.
"And which is the most worth while?" she asked in a still voice.
"I don't know, I don't know!" he cried miserably. "I must think."
He looked out straight ahead of him for some time. "Whichever way I
decide," he said after a little, "I want you to know this, Mary: I love
you, and I always will love you, and the fact that I choose my duty, if
I do, is only that if I did not, I would not consider myself worthy
even to look at you." A silence fell on them again.
"I can not live West," said he again, as though he had been arguing
this point in his mind and had just reached the conclusion of it. "My
life is East; I never knew it until now." He hesitated. "Would
you--that is, could you--I mean, would your family have to live East
too?"
She caught his meaning and drew herself up, with a little pride in the
movement.
"Wherever I go, whatever I do, my people must be free to go or do. You
have your duty to your family. I have my duty to mine!"
He bowed his head quietly in assent. She looked at the struggle
depicted in the lines of his face with eyes in which, strangely enough,
was much pity, but no unhappiness or doubt. Could it be that she was so
sure of the result?
At last he raised his head slowly and turned to her with an air of
decision.