"Hello, Hugh," he said, "come and sit down. I hear your wife's gone
abroad."
"Yes," I answered, "she thought she'd try it instead of the South Shore
this summer."
Perhaps I imagined that he looked at me queerly. I had made a great deal
of money out of my association with Grierson, I had valued very highly
being an important member of the group to which he belonged; but
to-night, as I watched him eating and drinking greedily, I hated him even
as I hated myself. And after dinner, when he started talking with a
ridicule that was a thinly disguised bitterness about the Citizens Union
and their preparations for a campaign I left him and went to bed.
Before a week had passed my painful emotions had largely subsided, and
with my accustomed resiliency I had regained the feeling of self-respect
so essential to my happiness. I was free. My only anxiety was for Nancy,
who had gone to New York the day after my last talk with her; and it was
only by telephoning to her house that I discovered when she was expected
to return.... I found her sitting beside one of the open French windows
of her salon, gazing across at the wooded hills beyond the Ashuela. She
was serious, a little pale; more exquisite, more desirable than ever; but
her manner implied the pressure of control, and her voice was not quite
steady as she greeted me.
"You've been away a long time," I said.
"The dressmakers," she answered. Her colour rose a little. "I thought
they'd never get through."
"But why didn't you drop me a line, let me know when you were coming?" I
asked, taking a chair beside her, and laying my hand on hers. She drew it
gently away.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"I've been thinking it all over--what we're doing. It doesn't seem right,
it seems terribly wrong."
"But I thought we'd gone over all that," I replied, as patiently as I
could. "You're putting it on an old-fashioned, moral basis."
"But there must be same basis," she urged. "There are responsibilities,
obligations--there must be!--that we can't get away from. I can't help
feeling that we ought to stand by our mistakes, and by our bargains; we
made a choice--it's cheating, somehow, and if we take this--what we
want--we shall be punished for it."
"But I'm willing to be punished, to suffer, as I told you. If you loved
me--"
"Hugh!" she exclaimed, and I was silent. "You don't understand," she went
on, a little breathlessly, "what I mean by punishment is deterioration.
Do you remember once, long ago, when you came to me before I was married,
I said we'd both run after false gods, and that we couldn't do without
them? Well, and now this has come; it seems so wonderful to me, coming
again like that after we had passed it by, after we thought it had gone
forever; it's opened up visions for me that I never hoped to see again.
It ought to restore us, dear--that's what I'm trying to say--to redeem
us, to make us capable of being what we were meant to be. If it doesn't
do that, if it isn't doing so, it's the most horrible of travesties, of
mockeries. If we gain life only to have it turn into death--slow death;
if we go to pieces again, utterly. For now there's hope. The more I
think, the more clearly I see that we can't take any step without
responsibilities. If we take this, you'll have me, and I'll have you. And
if we don't save each other--"
"But we will," I said.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "if we could start new, without any past. I married
Ham with my eyes open."
"You couldn't know that he would become--well, as flagrant as he is. You
didn't really know what he was then."
"There's no reason why I shouldn't have anticipated it. I can't claim
that I was deceived, that I thought my marriage was made in heaven. I
entered into a contract, and Ham has kept his part of it fairly well. He
hasn't interfered with my freedom. That isn't putting it on a high plane,
but there is an obligation involved. You yourself, in your law practice,
are always insisting upon the sacredness of contract as the very basis of
our civilization."
Here indeed would have been a home thrust, had I been vulnerable at the
time. So intent was I on overcoming her objections, that I resorted
unwittingly to the modern argument I had more than once declared in court
to be anathema-the argument of the new reform in reference to the common
law and the constitution.
"A contract, no matter how seriously entered into at the time it was
made, that later is seen to violate the principles of humanity should be
void. And not only this, but you didn't consent that he should disgrace
you."
Nancy winced.
"I never told you that he paid my father's debts, I never told anyone,"
she said, in a low voice.
"Even then," I answered after a moment, "you ought to see that it's too
terrible a price to pay for your happiness. And Ham hasn't ever pretended
to consider you in any way. It's certain you didn't agree that he should
do--what he is doing."
"Suppose I admitted it," she said, "there remain Maude and your children.
Their happiness, their future becomes my responsibility as well as
yours."
"But I don't love Maude, and Maude doesn't love me. I grant it's my
fault, that I did her a wrong in marrying her, but she is right in
leaving me. I should be doing her a double wrong. And the children will
be happy with her, they will be well brought up. I, too, have thought
this out, Nancy," I insisted, "and the fact is that in our respective
marriages we have been, each of us, victims of our time, of our
education. We were born in a period of transition, we inherited views of
life that do not fit conditions to-day. It takes courage to achieve
happiness, initiative to emancipate one's self from a morality that
begins to hamper and bind. To stay as we are, to refuse to take what is
offered us, is to remain between wind and water. I don't mean that we
should do anything--hastily. We can afford to take a reasonable time, to
be dignified about it. But I have come to the conclusion that the only
thing that matters in the world is a love like ours, and its fulfilment.
Achievement, success, are empty and meaningless without it. And you do
love me--you've admitted it."
"Oh, I don't want to talk about it," she exclaimed, desperately.
"But we have to talk about it," I persisted. "We have to thrash it out,
to see it straight, as you yourself have said."
"You speak of convictions, Hugh,--new convictions, in place of the old we
have discarded. But what are they? And is there no such thing as
conscience--even though it be only an intuition of happiness or
unhappiness? I do care for you, I do love you--"
"Then why not let that suffice?" I exclaimed, leaning towards her.
She drew back.
"But I want to respect you, too," she said.