If I let you go--you will do
nothing. All this ambition, all these interests will dwindle and die,
and she will not mind. She will not understand. She will think that
she still has you. Why should she covet what she cannot possess? Why
should she be given the thing that is mine--to throw aside?"
She did not look at Lewisham, but before her, her face a white misery.
"In a way--I had come to think of you as something, belonging to me
... I shall--still."
"There is one thing," said Lewisham after a pause, "it is a thing that
has come to me once or twice lately Don't you think that perhaps you
over-estimate the things I might have done? I know we've talked of
great things to do. But I've been struggling for half a year and more
to get the sort of living almost anyone seems able to get. It has
taken me all my time. One can't help thinking after that, perhaps the
world is a stiffer sort of affair ..."
"No," she said decisively. "You could have done great things.
"Even now," she said, "you may do great things--If only I might see
you sometimes, write to you sometimes--You are so capable
and--weak. You must have somebody--That is your weakness. You fail in
your belief. You must have support and belief--unstinted support and
belief. Why could I not be that to you? It is all I want to be.
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