Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

19. CHAPTER XIX (continued)

She was immensely tempted to give way to her natural trust in him, revived by the deep and now melancholy tones of his voice, and to tell him of her love, and of what had changed it. But although it seemed likely that she would soon control her anger with him, the certainty that he did not love her, confirmed by every word of his proposal, forbade any freedom of speech. To hear him speak and to feel herself unable to reply, or constrained in her replies, was so painful that she longed for the time when she should be alone. A more pliant woman would have taken this chance of an explanation, whatever risks attached to it; but to one of Mary's firm and resolute temperament there was degradation in the idea of self-abandonment; let the waves of emotion rise ever so high, she could not shut her eyes to what she conceived to be the truth. Her silence puzzled Ralph. He searched his memory for words or deeds that might have made her think badly of him. In his present mood instances came but too quickly, and on top of them this culminating proof of his baseness--that he had asked her to marry him when his reasons for such a proposal were selfish and half-hearted.

"You needn't answer," he said grimly. "There are reasons enough, I know. But must they kill our friendship, Mary? Let me keep that, at least."

"Oh," she thought to herself, with a sudden rush of anguish which threatened disaster to her self-respect, "it has come to this--to this--when I could have given him everything!"

"Yes, we can still be friends," she said, with what firmness she could muster.

"I shall want your friendship," he said. He added, "If you find it possible, let me see you as often as you can. The oftener the better. I shall want your help."

She promised this, and they went on to talk calmly of things that had no reference to their feelings--a talk which, in its constraint, was infinitely sad to both of them.