"What did he say?"
Her face was brilliant with excitement and anxiety. And I told her as
well as I could.
"He was preternaturally calm and easy," I said; "I couldn't imagine a
man being more well-bred about anything. But he won't say anything
definite now. Of course, he ought to have time to think. We could
have counted on that, if we'd thought. He will take plenty of time to
make up his mind, and then he won't change it. But Lord, I'm glad he
knows now; and from us."
There was a quiet knocking on the half-open door of the living-room.
"Come in. . . . Oh, John, you needn't have knocked."
He came in slowly and quietly, a gentle smile on his lips. The gray
granite look had softened into his natural coloring.
"I must say you're a very handsome pair," he said. "Don't go just yet,
Archie. If we three are to talk things over in the future, we had
better have a little tentative practice. Are we three the only ones
who know of this sensational development?"
"And Schuyler," I said.
"Is he for you or against you?"
"We thought we could be just great friends and see each other once in a
while. He was for that. But, of course, that was only romantic
nonsense."
"Yes, that was nonsense," said Fulton. "It would have made my position
altogether too ridiculous. Did it occur to you to be great friends,
and not see each other?"
"John," exclaimed Lucy, "you don't understand."
"I don't understand the importance which lovers attach to love? Well,
perhaps not. Drunkards hate to cure themselves of drink; smokers of
smoke; lovers of love. Yet all these appetites can be cured, often to
the immense benefit of the sufferers and of everybody concerned. And
so you thought you could lead two lives at once, Lucy?"
"I did think so."
"Gathering strength in romantic byways to see you through the prosy
thoroughfares? It wouldn't have worked."
"We know that now."
"You couldn't have lied about every meeting with Archie--lied as to
where you were going and where you had been. Truth comes natural to
you, even if you seem to have fallen down on some of the other virtues."
I _knew_ that he was laboring under a great strain. And yet for the
life of me I could not read any symptoms of that laboring in his face
or voice. His voice was easy, casual, and tinged with humor. It was
almost as if he was relieved to find two such inconsequential persons
as Lucy and myself at the bottom of his troubles. Now and then his
left eyebrow arched high on his forehead, and there would be a sharp
sudden glance in the corresponding eye.
"I wonder," he said, turning to me, "if people in your situation ever
look at it from the critical outsider's point of view. Have you
considered that a passion for something forbidden is not a natural, not
a respectable passion? According to all moral and social laws Lucy is
a forbidden object for your love and vice versa. People are not going
to think well of you two."
"Oh, we know _that_," said Lucy, wearily.
"My dear Lucy, you mustn't show signs of distress so early in the game.
What we are discussing, or trying to throw a little light on, is the
subject which just now, by all accounts, should interest you more than
anything else in the world. Furthermore, I really must insist on
consideration for myself and the children."
"No amount of talk ever made me do right--or wrong," said Lucy; "I just
do right or wrong, and of course _you_ think this is wrong. So what's
the use?"
"Think it wrong," exclaimed Fulton, "of course I do. Don't _you_?"
His voice expressed almost horrified surprise. "Don't _you_ think it
wrong to fall out of love with your husband, into love with another
man, and to take no more interest in your children than if they were a
couple of wooden dolls made in Germany?"
"Caring enough makes everything right," she said, still wearily, as if
the whole subject bored her.
"Caring _enough_!" exclaimed John. "Oh, caring _enough_ makes
everything right. But do you care _enough_--either of you? I may
change my mind, but just now, as a man fighting for what little
happiness there may be left for him in the world, this question of how
much you care is the crux of the whole matter. If I thought that you
cared _enough_ I'd take my hat off to the exception which proves the
rule that all illicit passions are wrong. If I thought that you cared
_enough_ I'd think that a great wonder had come to pass in the world,
and I'd give you my blessing and tell you to go your ways."
Lucy rose and went appealingly to him. "John, dear," she said, "we
_do_ care enough."
He turned to me quickly.
"And you think that?"
"I care enough," I said, "so that nothing else matters--not even the
hurt to you."
"Do you care so much that no argument will change you?"