But I won't do it!
I can't do it!" With a swift impulse he loosed his arms and
held her away from him. "Eve, it's the first time I have put
another human being before myself!"
Eve kept her head bent. Painful, inaudible sobs were shaking
her from head to foot.
"It's something in you--something unconscious--something high
and fine, that holds me back--that literally bars the way.
Eve, can't you see that I'm fighting--fighting hard?"
After he had spoken there was silence--a long, painful
silence--during which Eve waged the battle that so many of her
sex have waged before; the battle in which words are useless
and tears of no account. She looked very slight, very young,
very forlorn, as she stood there. Then, in the oppressive
sense of waiting that filled the whole room, she looked up at
him.
Her face was stained with tears, her thick, black lashes were
still wet with them; but her expression, as her eyes met
Loder's, was a strange example of the courage, the firmness,
the power of sacrifice that may be hidden in a fragile vessel.
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