She hadn't told her husband.
She had been on the point of telling him, but for once her great gift
of frankness had failed her. She had not feared any storm that might
burst upon her own head; it was only that her heart had rebelled
against adding to the weight of care and sorrow which her husband
already carried. Let him have what pleasure he could out of the trip
to Palm Beach. When he returned she could do her telling.
The fact that she had not told, and was not going to for some time,
troubled her. She felt, she said, as if she was lying. She made it
very clear that her reticence was for his sake, not for her own.
Personally I rejoiced in the failure of her frankness. Trouble enough
was bound to come of our love for each other; at best there would be
weary months of waiting for old knots to be untied before there could
be any question of tying new ones. There would be at least one
dreadful interview to be gone through with John Fulton; many
readjustments of friendships, some friends would side with him, some
with her; and last and worst, that moment when I should have to tell my
mother and she would grow old before my eyes.
"There'll be heaps of little worries and troubles, Lucy, dear," I said;
"bound to be. But we'll not begin to think about them till John comes
back from Palm Beach. If it's wrong for us to love each other at all,
at least we are going to make it as right as we can. We owe ourselves
all the unalloyed happiness we can lay hands on. So--let's pretend."
We sat on the sofa in the Fultons' living-room holding hands, like two
children.
"Let's pretend," I said, "that there aren't any complications; that
time has gone backward ten years; that we've just gotten engaged; that
there's nobody to disapprove and be unhappy about it. I can pretend
true, if you can."
"It's easy for me," said Lucy; "I was never any good at remembering or
looking forward, never any good at anything that wasn't going on right
there and then. Oh, I'm so glad it's _you_!"
"Why, Lucy?"
"Because you're not a bit like me. If you were like me, we wouldn't
think of what would happen later on, we'd just go away together. It's
so complicated and foolish to think we can't. Laws and people make
such a snarl of things. I wouldn't try to untangle it, I'd just cut it
all to pieces, and then I suppose we'd be sorry."
"Yes, dear, we'd be very, very sorry. And the world would make us
suffer almost more than our love could make up to us for. So we'll
just have to pretend for a while."
"And besides," she said in a startled sort of way, "I might fall out of
love with you, mightn't I? Oh, I've fallen out of love lots of
times--then with John, and maybe I'll fail you. You must know that I'm
not any good. But even if I'm not, I do love you. Oh, I do."
"Do you?"
"And I _trust_ you so. There's nobody so kind and thoughtful and
strong."
It is pleasant for an unkind, thoughtless weak man to be told such
untruths by the woman he loves. And for a few moments I imagined I had
the qualities that she had wished upon me, nay, loved upon me. For a
few moments there was no kindness, no thoughtfulness, no strength of
which I was incapable.
"When your arms are around me I know that nothing can hurt me."
I was holding her in my arms now. But there came in through the hall a
pattering of little feet, and by the time Jock and Hurry had burst into
the room I was at a garden window looking out, and Lucy had caught up
from her work bag that Penelope's web of a silk necktie upon which she
so often worked, and made no progress.
"Has Favver come back?"
"Why, no, you little goose. He's gone to Palm Beach. We took him to
the train. He won't be back tomorrow, nor the day after. Nor the day
after that," and she halted only when she had come to about the tenth
tomorrow. "And now make your manners to Mr. Mannering."
In fiction children and dogs have an intuitive aversion for the villain
of the piece. But Jock and Hurry had none for me. Indeed they liked
me very much and looked to me for treats, and rides round the block,
and romping games in which I fled and they pursued. But then it was
only since yesterday that I had become a genuine villain. Had their
intuition made the discovery? I think I was a little anxious.
But they rushed upon me, and we were to remain for the present at
least, so it seemed, the same old friends.
It flashed across my mind that some day in the not far future these
children would live under my roof; surely the courts would award them
to Lucy; and I highly resolved to be a genuine father to them through
thick and thin. Somehow or other they must always be fond of me.
Whatever I had to leave when I died they must share equally with any
children that I might happen to have of my own. Children? I caught
Lucy's eyes. We looked at each other across the tops of those
children's heads, and read each other's thoughts. I know this, because
when Jock and Hurry had been sent away, I said: "Did you know what I
was thinking of just then? I was thinking, wondering, hoping----"
"I couldn't love you," she said quietly, "and not want what you want
and hope what you hope."
"Lucy!"