Count on that, Howard; for that is all you can surely count on.

And now, at last, you know." As he stood there, it came to him slowly that, deep within him he had always known this; that he had never really counted on anything else though he had throttled his doubts by covering her throat with diamonds.
Her strangeness, her pallor, her acquiescence, the delicate hint of depravity in her, the subtle response to all that was worst in him had attracted him, only to learn, little by little, that the taint of corruption was only a taint infecting others, not her; that the promise of evil was only a promise; that he had to deal with a young body but an old intelligence, and a mind so old that at moments her faded gaze almost appalled him with its indolent clairvoyance.
Long since he knew, too, that in all the world he could never again find such a mate for him.

This had, unadmitted even to himself, always remained a hidden secret within this secret man--an unacknowledged, undrawn-on reserve in case of the failure which he, even in sanguine moods, knew in his inmost corrupted soul that his quest was doomed to.
And now he had no more need of secrets from himself; now, turning his gaze inward, he looked upon all with which he had chosen to deceive himself.

And there was nothing left for self-deception.
"If I marry you!" he said calmly "at least I know what I am getting." "I will marry you, Howard.

I've got to marry somebody pretty soon.