LILIAN. No, it is your duty to look after her. You have had her youth, as you would have mine.
An answer was on my lips. I could have asked her what she was doing with her youth, and to whom she had given her flower. I could have demanded details concerning the mystery of her life, and what strange feeling of misplaced pride had caused her to give way to the senile passion of her mother's old love? But I resolved not to touch upon that topic as yet. I studiously avoided alluding to Mr. Arvel any more. I had something else to tell her before that. I was sensible enough to know that I should have had no satisfaction, but on the contrary, she would have been on her guard against me, and perhaps warned Papa that I was too far-seeing. More evidence was what I wanted, and I resolved to wait for it. I did not care if what I was going to say would widen the breach between us for ever. I was quite prepared for her to tell me that all was over between us, and I behaved and spoke as a man would when seeking the rupture of a liaison.
JACKY. I want to say something to you. I wish to speak plainly, and you must promise me that whatever I may say you will not be offended. And after all, if you are, what matters it? I shall then only be in the same position as I was this morning. In spite of all you have ever said or written to me, you do not love me. All you care for is money; the money you think I ought to give you. Whether I have got it or not, does not matter to you. You are mercenary. I told you I had nothing but my love, and that was clearly not enough for you, and so you never answered my last letters, proving that you did not want to see me, without I gave you money.
LILIAN. You only wrote a lot of foolishness. And if I did not write, it was because you told me not to.
JACKY. That is a lie! I said: “If you do not write, I shall know you have had enough of me.” Read my letters again. And even if I had said so, I am going to be fool enough to tell you what you ought to have written-if you really loved me: “I want to see you. I don't care what you have written. Come to me, for I want to see you soon. Be of good heart, for I love you.”
LILIAN. But you want everything and give nothing in return. I am not mercenary.
JACKY. That is not true. You are. I'll prove it. I could not fathom your conduct up to now, but I have just done so. Listen to me. I am not intelligent -
LILIAN. Yes, you are.
JACKY. No, I am not. I am slow at seeing things, but I remember, and think them over, and put two and two together; and by analysis and deduction I find out the truth, even as I have now got the key to your mysterious conduct of the past month. I know you now. That is why I brought you a looking-glass. I can see all, as though in a mirror. Every move you make has a motive of venality.
LILIAN. (Quite off her balance now.) You don't understand! You have wrong ideas of me! You are strange! You are unjust!
JACKY. Then tell me what you want. (No answer.) You would not come to Paris where we used to go any more. Shall I take a furnished apartment at about a hundred and fifty francs a month?
LILIAN. No.
JACKY. Will you come if I promise you five louis for every visit to me in Paris?
(Here she did a thing I had never noticed in a woman before. She turned away from me and twisted her body as if I had a whip in my hand, writhing as if I had struck her.)
LILIAN. Oh! No! No! I don't want that!
JACKY. Then tell me what you are driving at. Marriage? That you've asked me for twice. I'm forty-six, going on for forty-seven. In four or five years I shall be used up, good for nothing. You'll be in your prime, and I shall be done for, perhaps a querulous, rheumatic invalid. I am a prisoner. Can't you see that? You should be kind to a man in prison.
LILIAN. All men are free, or should make themselves so. You have no consideration for me or my feelings.
JACKY. Untrue again. Whatever I may be, I have been loyal to you You made the first advances. I have not seduced you. You set your cap at me. Is that a lie? (No answer.) You know that I should never have dared to take a liberty with the daughter of the house where I was a guest, unless I had plainly seen that she wanted me. I have long since proved to you that I desired you two years before you thought of me, and I kept my lust hidden. Had I been the traitor you try to make me out, this is what I could have done, and take heed of what I am going to say, as it applies to all men. (I caught hold of her by the arm and tried to see her face, but she kept her features averted from my searching gaze and bent her head upon her breast. To make her hear me, I had to bend my head too.) This will be useful to you: beware of men who promise much. Let me suppose that this summer I had promised you all kinds of things for the end of the year-marriage, money, and God knows what! Then I could have said: “Now let me have you entirely.” Believing in me as you do, and though you often lie to me you know I have always been truthful to you, have I not?
LILIAN. Yes.
JACKY. Well, I could have taken your maidenhead, perhaps got you in the family way, and gone away laughing at you and all your people. (There was no reply to this. She bent her head still more, and dragged herself away from me, writhing strangely as she spoke.)
LILIAN. But this is my position. I am a milliner. It is supposed down here that I am carrying on this trade merely as a pleasant occupation until I get married. I have talent and taste. I know I have. Here I hardly make headway. I can't get workgirls or fresh customers. I have to give a hundred francs a month to Father for my keep. (The last time she told me this, the sum was a hundred and fifty. And Papa had just told me in the afternoon that he had given her a purse with silver mounts and five louis in it for a Christmas present. This did not look as if she was paying for her board now, whatever she may have done up to this winter. The word “darling” would not be so lovingly applied to a grasping Papa.) He gives Mother only a hundred francs a week to keep house. It is not enough for five mouths and all the dogs. Besides, he is a great glutton and wants everything of the finest and well served. He does not care a straw for me or my future. I know I please men generally and I could marry to-morrow if I liked (?), but I could never act the part of a loving wife to a man I did not care about. My stomach rises at the very thought. I want to go and live in Paris, and start a millinery business in a little apartment of my own. My parents won't help me. When I came to Paris this summer to you, and brought back the money you gave me, supposed to be the bad debt coming in from Madame Muller, they received me with open arms, and asked no questions. But when I returned from you and your English friends empty-handed, there was an awful row, and Mother was going herself with me to see the lady I was supposed to have spent the day with.
JACKY. Which reminds me that I thoroughly believe you had that letter of mine with the money in it, but being angry at having to worry me for it, and thinking too that it was not enough, you never acknowledged it. Later, when I asked you about it, to get out of it all, you denied having received the letter. That was a lie.
She did not seem astonished at this accusation, but looked quite dazed and replied softly: “What ugly ideas you have of me!”
JACKY. But you can't go and live alone in Paris, You might perhaps carry on a business, if you were to go home and sleep at your mother's every night, but otherwise your reputation would be damned. People would talk, and ask your concierge, and he would say that you were all alone, and that there was an Englishman who often came and stopped late, and so on.
LILIAN. But I know a girl who is in business all alone, and no one speaks against her. I could not go backwards and forwards, as the work must be ready for the girls at seven a.m., and sometimes they work until eleven at night. You don't or won't understand me.