"I can't meet you this morning, I am to have a talk with John. Somehow
I feel sure that something is going to be decided." My heart was
beating quick and fast. I was unaccountably excited. This excitement
seemed to communicate itself to Lucy. She said as much.
"I'm terribly excited," she said, and her voice had a kind of wild,
triumphant note in it. "You'll tell me everything the minute you can?"
"Of course. Good luck."
"Good luck."
We drove across Forty-third Street and up the crowded Avenue for
several blocks without speaking. Then Fulton smiled a little and spoke
in a level, easy voice.
"Perhaps," he said, "the water is not so cold as it looks. Shall we
take the plunge?"
"By all means," I said. My heart was thumping nervously. I hoped he
would not notice it.
"Lucy and I," he said, "as you know, were wonderfully happy for a good
many years. Until last winter, I was never away from her over night.
And then, only because of a financial crisis. I have never even looked
at another woman with desire, or thought of one. Until last winter,
Lucy was the same about other men. She was a wonderful little mother
to her kids, and the most faithful, loving, valiant wife that ever
belonged to a man full of cares and worries."
"I know all this, John," I said; "I could wish that you had been
unhappy together."
"I wish to make several things clear," he said. "According to all
civil and moral law, I am an absolutely undivorceable man. There is
only one ground for divorce in this state. To clear the decks for you
and Lucy, I should have to smirch myself and take a black eye."
"But the people who count always understand these things."
"In order to secure my own unhappiness, to make it everlasting, I
should have to perjure myself. I know that it is the custom of the
country for married gentlemen who are no longer loved to perjure
themselves. But it seems to me a custom that would bear mending.
However, it is not yet a question of that."
"Still undecided?"
"No. My mind is made up. I am prepared to step down and take my black
eye on certain conditions."