"I love Lucy, John, and she feels the same way about me."
His expression of courteous inquiring gravity did not change. "So
_that's_ what was at the bottom of everything. I told her she was
seeing too much of you, but she wouldn't listen. Of course, my
contention was just on general principles. I thought you were both to
be trusted."
"We only found it out just before you went to Palm Beach."
"You ought to have seen it coming. A man of your experience and record
isn't like a college freshman in such matters."
"If I had seen it coming, John, believe me I'd have run from it. But
all at once it had come, and it's a question now, not of what might
have been, but of Lucy's happiness."
"Yes," he said, "we mustn't think of ourselves now, or of the children.
We must think of what is best for Lucy. And what is best for Lucy
can't be thought out offhand. There's the complication of winding up
here, moving, and so forth. What is your idea? Yours and Lucy's?"
"We hope and trust that you won't want to stand in our way."
"Divorce? Well, of course, it might come to that. It's not, however,
an idea which I am prepared offhand to receive with enthusiasm. Any
more than I propose to act upon the very first impulse which I had when
you told me."
"What was that?"
"I thought how delicious it would be to get my automatic and fill you
full of lead. But you and Lucy, I take it, have so far resisted your
temptations, and I must battle with mine."
"I ought to have said _that_; our temptations have been resisted, John."
He shrugged that vital fact aside with, "Oh, I should have known if
there had been anything to know."
"I needn't say, need I, that I feel like hell about your position, your
end of it?"
"My position is not so bad as it was. I have something definite to
face now. But much as I appreciate your impulsive good will, I don't
think that your sympathy is a thing which I care to accept. Lucy, of
course, feels that her fancy for you is a more imperative call than her
duty to her children and me."
"You've been in love, John."
"I _am_ in love. I think we had better not discuss our several powers
of loving."
He rose from the bench and began to stroll up and down in front of it.
"I haven't," he said, "given this contingency any thought whatever.
You and Lucy will have to possess your souls in patience for a time.
It is all very sudden. But supposing for a moment that I should
consent to a divorce. Are you able to support a wife?"
"I have no money of my own," I said, "but my father, as you know, has
oceans of it, and gives me a very handsome income."
"And yet he might not care to support you above the ruins of a home.
In that eventuality what could you do? Lucy is very extravagant."
"I could work my hands to the bone for her."
Fulton looked curiously at his own lean, nervous hands, smiled faintly,
and said: "Yes, and then be chucked aside like a worn-out garment.
Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And now you'll be
anxious to see Lucy, and report. Tell her that I swallowed the pill
without making too much of a face. Tell her that I seemed inclined to
be reasonable. Tell her also with my compliments that she must
continue to exercise self-restraint and patience. Things are bad
enough. If they were any worse I could not answer the consequences."
"All right, John. Thank you for taking it so calmly."
"Oh, I'm not calm inside. Don't worry about that."
I left him there--standing very straight in the garden path, his face
the color of granite, and of the stillness.