"But you think about it."
"Even so, I couldn't discuss it--with you."
"But I'm the very one with whom you _could_ discuss it. Between us the
conversation would be what lawyers call privileged."
She looked round at him for the first time since entering the
compartment. "Is anything privileged between you and me?"
"Isn't everything?"
"I don't see how."
"We've been man and wife--"
"That's the very reason. No two people seem to me so far apart as those
who've been man and wife--and aren't so any longer."
"And yet, in a way, no two are so near together."
Her eyes were full of mute questioning. He made no attempt to approach
her, but in leaning across the upholstered arm of his seat he seemed to
overcome some of the distance between them.
"No two are so near together," he went on, "for the very reason that
when they're separated outwardly they're bound the more closely by the
things of the heart and the soul and the spirit. After all, those are
the ties that count. The legal dissolving of bonds and making of new
ones is only superficial. It hasn't put you and me asunder--not the you
and me," he hurried on, as something in her expression and attitude
seemed to indicate dissent, "not the you and me that are really
essential. No court and no judge could dissolve the union we entered
into when you were twenty-one and I was twenty-seven, and our two lives
melted into each other like the flowing together of two streams. Neither
judge nor court can resolve into their original waters the rivers that
have already become one."
She smiled faintly, perhaps bitterly. "Doesn't your figure of speech
carry you too far? In our case the judge and the court were only
incidental. What really dissolved our union was--"
"I know what you're going to say. And it _was_ against the letter of the
contract. Of course. I've never denied that, have I? But in every true
marriage there's something over and above the letter of the contract--to
which the letter of the contract is as nothing. And if ever there was a
true marriage, Edith, ours was."
"Stop!" Her little figure became erect. Her eyes, which up to the
present he had been comparing to forget-me-nots, as he used to do, now
shone like blue-fired winter stars. "Stop, Chip."
"Why?"
"Because I ask you to."
"But why should you ask me to, when I'm only stating facts? It _is_ a
fact, isn't it? that our marriage was a true one in every sense in which
a marriage _can_ be true, till other people--no, let me go on!--till
other people--your Aunt Emily most of all--advised you to exact your
pound of flesh and the strict rigor of the law. I gave you your pound of
flesh, Edith, right off the heart; so that if atonement could be made in
that way--"
"Chip, _will_ you tell me what good there is in bringing this up now?
You're married to some one else, and so am I. We can't go back, because
we've burned the bridges behind us--"
"But it's something to know that we'd go back if we could."
"I haven't said so."
"True."
He fell silent because of the impossibility of speech. He made no move
to go. To sit with her in this way, without speaking, was like an
obliteration of the last seven years, reducing them to a nightmare. It
was a shock to him, therefore, when she pointed to a distant spire on a
hill, saying:
"There's Harrow. We shall be in London in half an hour."
In London in half an hour, and this brief renewal of what never should
have been interrupted would be ended! He recalled similar journeys with
her over this very bit of line, when the arrival in London had been but
the beginning of long delightful days together. And now he might not see
her for another seven years; he might never see her any more. It was
unnatural, incredible, impossible; and yet the facts precluded any
rebellion on his part against them. Even if she were willing to rebel he
couldn't do it--with a wife and boy in New York. He had married again on
purpose to satisfy his longing for a child--a family. He felt very
tenderly toward them, the little chap and his mother; but he was clear
as to the fact that he felt tenderly toward them, pityingly tender,
largely because when face to face with Edith he wished to God that they
had never been part of his life. And doubtless she felt the same toward
her Mr. Lacon and the child of that union. But she would never admit
it--not directly, at any rate. He might gather it from hints, or read
it between the lines; but he could never make her say so. Why should she
say so? What good would it do? Were she to confess to him that she hated
the man toward whom she was traveling, he would experience an unholy
satisfaction--but, after all, it would be unholy.
In the end he could find no simpler relief to his feelings than to take
down her belongings from the overhead racks.
"I'll just run along and pick up my own traps," he explained, "and come
back to see you properly looked after."
Though she assured him of her ability to look after herself, he felt at
liberty to ridicule her pretensions. "You must have changed a great deal
if you can do that," he declared, as he handed down a roll of rugs
strapped with a shawl-strap.
"I have changed a great deal."
"I don't see it. I can't see that you've changed at all--essentially."
"Oh, but it's essentially that I _am_ changed. Superficially I may be
more or less the same--a little older; but within I'm another woman."
She took advantage of the fact that his back was turned to her, as he
disentangled the handles of parasols and umbrellas from the network
above, to say further: "Perhaps--since we've met in this unexpected
way--and talked--possibly a little too frankly--it may be well if I
remind you that you'd still be confronted with that fact--that I'm
another woman--even if our bridges weren't burned behind us." He decided
to let that pass without discussion, and because he said nothing she
added: "And I dare say I should find you another man. So don't let us be
too sorry, Chip, or think that if we hadn't done what we _have_ done--"
Though he still stood with his back to her, lifting down a heavy bag
with a black canvas covering, he could hear a catch in her voice that
almost amounted to a sob. Because there was something in himself
dangerously near responding to this appeal, he uttered the first words
that came to him:
"Hello! Here's a thing I recognize. Didn't you have this--?"
As he stood holding the bag awkwardly before her she inclined her head.
"One of your wedding presents, wasn't it?"
[Illustration: "Oh, Chip, go away! I can't stand any more--_now_."
"Do you mean that you'll see me--later--when we're in London?"]