1
THEY had come back to civilization. But—unwittingly, at first—into this
life of talk, of ideas, of theory, of vague ambition and of
self-congratulatory superiority to the mere plain facts of life, they
brought somewhat more than a memory of their vagabond adventuring. In
their brief and joyous return to nature they had surrendered themselves
to its purposes more deeply than they had been aware. But presently
Rose-Ann announced that she would have to visit the doctor of whom
Dorothy Sheridan had once told her. Rose-Ann did not say that she was
with child—that phrase was never used between them in their few
discussions of the incident. For that phrase would have implied that she
intended to bear a child. It was discussed rather as an accident, an
annoying but not serious interruption to their plans. Rose-Ann took the
matter, not lightly, but in a soberly practical spirit. And so
convincing was her tone that it did not occur to Felix to question the
sincerity of her apparent attitude.
Secretly he was troubled. In spite of Rose-Ann’s confidence, he
distressed himself with what appeared to be needless forebodings. It
seemed to be true that real life was, in this matter as in others,
different from fiction. In a story, this would have been a desperate
situation; but in actual fact it appeared to have no such gravity. He
hoped that was indeed the truth; and, afterward, it appeared that she
had been right.... He wondered why he had been so absurd about it!
She would never know how absurd.... He would never tell her how, one
night, walking alone along a dark stretch of lake shore, his courage had
failed him utterly; how all the terrible things of which he had ever
heard had rushed into his mind, filling and flooding it with a kind of
nameless remorse, until he had ceased to be a man, and had become a mere
terrified child—and how in the influence of that guilty terror he had
sunk on his knees in the wet sand, praying to a God he did not believe
in, whispering like a child to a kind Father: “God, don’t let anything
happen to her!” He had not thought of her then as a free woman acting
wisely in her own right—no, but only as a helpless and lovely girl, his
beloved, given him to cherish and protect, whom he had let go down to
the very gates of death—in vain! Not in the terrible triumph of
creation, but meaninglessly.... And he prayed: “Give me back
Rose-Ann!”...
No, he would never tell her what a fool he had been.
2
And he would never tell her—for he had safely forgotten now—the moment
when, knowing that their lives could go on now as before, they had
walked again in the Park under great trees that lifted their shivering
glooms to the sky. Through the bushes had come the gleam of motor-cars
that glided swiftly down the avenue. “You were a dear to worry,” she had
said. “But you needn’t any more. Everything’s quite all right now.”
He had looked at her, cut through with a strange unreal pain, his whole
mind quivering. Forces that he did not understand were hurling
themselves on his heart, crushing and stunning it. He breathed with
difficulty. He looked away from her. He could not speak.
But one forgets things like that. It would not be pleasant to remember
them. Nor is it hard to forget unpleasant things in the midst of
civilization, with its friendships, parties, talk, books and theories.
So, looking at life realistically, Felix felt that he and Rose-Ann were
very fortunate, after all.
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