“Ben!”

“I know.  I know.  No, I am not going to think such things.  That would be unworthy of what we have felt.”  He paused a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was under control.  “Madeleine, remember well what I say to you now.  I shall probably never again speak to you with such absolute truth, or even acknowledge it to myself.  I accept the necessity of separation.  I know all the sufferings it will bring, all the doubts, the unreasoning jealousies.  I am big enough in experience to understand what you have just suggested to me, but as a man who loves you, Madeleine, I will never understand it.  I know that a dozen men may come into your life, interest you intensely, even absorb you for a while, and that they would still mean nothing to you the moment I come.  Well, I am different.  A man is different.  While you are away, I shall not see a woman without resentment; I shall not think of any one but you, and if I did, I would cease to love you.”

“But why?”

“Because I cannot share anything of what belongs to you.  That is my nature.  There is no use in pretending the contrary.  Yours is different, and I understand why it is so.  I have listened to many confidences, understood many lives that others would not understand.  I have always maintained that it is the natural thing for a human being to love many times—­even that there might he in the same heart a great, overpowering love and a little one.  I still believe it—­with my mind.  I know it is so.  These are the things we like to analyze in human nature together.  I know it is true, but it is not true for me.  No, I would never understand it in you.  I know myself too well, I am jealous of everything of the past—­oh, insanely jealous.  I know that no sooner are you gone than I will be tortured by the most ridiculous doubts.  I will see you in the moonlight all across that endless sea with other men near you.  I will dream of other men with millions, ready to give you everything your eyes adore.  I will imagine men of big minds that will fascinate you.  I will even say to myself that now that you have known what a great love can mean you will all the more be likely to need it, to seek something to counterfeit it—­”

“Ben, my poor Ben—­frightful,” she murmured.

“That is how it is.  Shall I tell you something else?”

“What?”

“I wish devoutly you had never told me a word of—­of the past.”

“But how can you say such things?  We have been honest with each other.  You yourself—­”

“I know, I know, I have no right myself, and yet there it is.  It is something fearful, this madness of possession that comes to me.  No, I have no fear that I will not always be first in your heart, only I understand the needs, the habits, of your nature.  I understand myself now as I have not before, and that’s why I say to you solemnly, Madeleine, if ever for a moment another man should come into your life—­never, never, let me know.”