"But suppose I do? Would you trust to me? Would you believe that the
thing I felt to be right for me was the right thing for us both?"
"I think I should."
"Well, then, listen. It's this way. You know, Chip, I love you." She had
his hand now in both of hers, twisting her fingers nervously in and out
between his. "I don't have to tell you, do I? I love you. Oh, how I love
you! It's as if the very heart had gone out of my body into yours. And
yet, Chip--oh, don't be angry--it seems to me that if I left him now and
went back to you I should become something vile. It _isn't_ because he's
so noble and good. No, it isn't that. And it isn't just the idea of
passing from one man to another and back again. We _have_ turned
marriage into opera bouffe, we Americans, and we might as well take it
as we've made it. It isn't that at all. It's--it's exactly what you said
just now: it's like a man swimming away from a sinking ship, and leaving
his wife and children to drown, because he can't rescue them. Better a
thousand times to go down with them, isn't it? You may call it waste of
human material, if you like, and yet--well, you know what I mean. I
should be leaving him to drown and you'd be leaving her to drown; and,
even though we _can't_ give them happiness by standing by, yet it's some
satisfaction just to _stand_ by. Isn't that it? Isn't that the spirit?"
He withdrew his hand from hers to cover his eyes with it. He spoke
hoarsely: "It may be. I--I think it is."
"But, _if_ it is, then the spirit of the contract is different now from
what it would have been--well, you know when. Then it meant that I
should have stood by _you_--forgiven you, if that's the word--and shown
myself truly your wife, for better or for worse. I didn't understand
that. I only knew about the better. I didn't see that a man and a woman
might take each other for worse--and still be true. If I had seen
it--oh, what a happy woman I should have been to-day, and in all these
years in which I haven't been happy at all! That was the spirit of the
contract then, I suppose--but now it's different. It confuses me a
little. Doesn't it confuse you?"
"Perhaps."
"Let me take your hand again; I can talk to you better like that.
Now--_now_--we've undertaken new responsibilities. We've involved
others. We've let them involve themselves. We can't turn our back upon
them, can we? No. I thought that's what you'd say. We can't. The
contract we've made with them must come before the one we made with each
other. We're bound, not only in law but in honor. Aren't we?"
He made some inarticulate sign of assent.
"And I suppose that's what he meant by the penalty--the penalty in its
extreme form: that we've put ourselves where we can't keep the higher
contract, the complete one, we made together--because we're bound by one
lower and incomplete, to which we've got to be faithful. Isn't that the
spirit _now_, don't you think?"
Again he muttered something inarticulately assenting.
"Well, then, Chip, I'm going." She rose with the words.
"No, no; not yet." He caught her hand in both of his, holding it as he
leaned across the table.
"Yes, Chip, now. What do we gain by my staying? We see the thing we've
got to do--and we must do it. We must begin on the instant. If I were to
stay a minute longer now, it would be--it would be for things we've
recognized as no longer permissible. I'm going. I'm going now!"
There was something in her face that induced him to relax his hold. She
withdrew her hand slowly, her eyes on his.
"Aren't you going to say good-by?"
She shook her head, from the little doorway of the rotunda. "No. What's
the use? What good-by is possible between you and me? I'm--I'm just
going."
And she was gone.
With a quick movement he sprang to the opening between two of the small
pillars. "Edith!" She turned. "Edith! Come here. Come here, for God's
sake! Only one word more."
She came back slowly, not to the door, but to the opening through which
he leaned, his knee on the seat inside. "What is it?"
He got possession of her hand. "Tell me again that quotation he gave
us."