This is what you do not know--that, in three generations, every woman of my race has--gone wrong.

...

Every one! and I am beginning--with such a marriage! ...
deliberately, selfishly, shamelessly, perfectly conscious of the frivolous, erratic blood in me, aware of the race record behind me.
"Once, when I knew nothing--before I--I met you--I believed such a marriage would not only permit me mental tranquillity, but safely anchor me in the harbour of convention, leaving me free to become what I am fashioned to become--autocrat and arbiter in my own world.

And now! and now! I don't know--truly I don't know what I may become.

Your love forces my hand.