here at his ease. He’s not the courage to manage it without my help—he’s too much of a coward to tell me openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach. He wants to keep us both.”
When she reached this point, Rodney pocketed the letter and elaborately looked at his watch. Although the action meant that he resigned Cassandra, for he knew his own incompetence and distrusted himself entirely, and lost Katharine, for whom his feeling was profound though unsatisfactory, still it appeared to him that there was nothing else left for him to do. He was forced to go, leaving Katharine free, as he had said, to tell her mother that the engagement was at an end. But to do what plain duty required of an honourable man, cost an effort which only a day or two ago would have been inconceivable to him. That a relationship such as he had glanced at with desire could be possible between him and Katharine, he would have been the first, two days ago, to deny with indignation. But now his life had changed; his attitude had changed; his feelings were different; new aims and possibilities had been shown him, and they had an almost irresistible fascination and force. The training of a life of thirty-five years had not left him defenceless; he was still master of his dignity; he rose, with a mind made up to an irrevocable farewell.
“I leave you, then,” he said, standing up and holding out his hand with an effort that left him pale, but lent him dignity, “to tell your mother that our engagement is ended by your desire.”
She took his hand and held it.
“You don’t trust me?” she said.
“I do, absolutely,” he replied.
“No. You don’t trust me to help you. . . I could help you?”
“I’m hopeless without your help!” he exclaimed passionately, but withdrew his hand and turned his back.
