He turned away with a heavy sigh. "Unfortunately, I don't think much of deathbed conversions," he said. Her distress now failed to move him; he was too exhausted to feel.
She took his hands imploringly.
"Oh, Paul, I'm stupid. But I do wish to understand for I—" She hesitated again, at his unresponsiveness, and he patted her hands, then replaced them at her sides.
"No not even that," he said, flinching from the truth, yet forcing his way toward it. "You thought you loved me, and in a sort of way you do. But it's not quite the way, and it's not your fault. I should never have inflicted myself on you. I ought to know better than to invite people to subscribe to me. I fail them, and they fail me. But one can't always be wise and farsighted. One so dreads to be eternally thrust back on oneself. . . . A vagrant has no right to claim love and understanding; he sacrifices that for his independence. Besides, a vagrant has nothing to offer in exchange—save picturesque tales of his selfish vagrancy!"
As he talked he heard the words falling dead at Phœbe's feet, as all his weighted words must. She could understand him only when his speech soared on wings of passion. Even yet he might sweep her doubts aside in a single gesture, but all passion had subsided. He saw her fingers twisting and intertwining, and looked away.
"In other circumstances," he went on, "we might have found in each other enough love to sustain us. The war has divided the world into camps of thought, with orthodox folk joined together in temporary fraternity in one, and in the other an assortment of outcasts with an assortment of loyalties. You're not in my camp, dear. It wouldn't even be wise that you should be."
Phœbe winced, but the hard cogent tone helped to steady her. "Who are your colleagues?" she demanded.
