t he really had to hold himself to
say it.

"Well, when I go on--?"

"Why, you make me quite want to ship back myself. You make me quite feel
as if American City would be the best place for us."

It made her all too finely vibrate. "For 'us'--?"

"For me and Charlotte. Do you know that if we should ship, it would
serve you quite right?" With which he smiled--oh he smiled! "And if you
say much more we WILL ship."

Ah, then it was that the cup of her conviction, full to the brim,
overflowed at a touch! THERE was his idea, the clearness of which for
an instant almost dazzled her. It was a blur of light, in the midst
of which she saw Charlotte like some object marked, by contrast, in
blackness, saw her waver in the field of vision, saw her removed,
transported, doomed. And he had named Charlotte, named her again, and
she had MADE him--which was all she had needed more: it was as if she
had held a blank letter to the fire and the writing had come out still
larger than she hoped. The recognition of it took her some seconds, but
she might when she spoke have been folding up these precious lines and
restoring them to her pocket. "Well, I shall be as much as ever then the
cause of what you do. I haven't the least doubt of your being up to
that if you should think I might get anything out of it; even the little
pleasure," she laughed, "of having said, as you call it, 'more.' Let my
enjoyment of this therefore, at any price, continue to represent for you
what _I_ call sacrificing you."

She had drawn a long breath; she had made him do it ALL for her, and had
lighted the way to it without his naming her husband. That silence had
been as distinct as the sharp, the inevitable sound, and something now,
in him, followed it up, a sudden air as of confessing at last fully to
where she was and of begging the particular question. "Don't you think
then I can take care of myself?"

"Ah, it's exactly what I've gone upon. If it wasn't for that--!"

But she broke off, and they remained only another moment face to face.
"I'll let you know, my dear, the day _I_ feel you've begun to sacrifice
me."

"'Begun'?" she extravagantly echoed.

"Well, it will be, for me, the day you've ceased to believe in me."

With which, his glasses still fixed on her, his hands in his pockets,
his hat pushed back, his legs a little apart, he seemed to plant or to
square himself for a kind of assurance it had occurred to him he might
as well treat her to,