"You judge Alan."
"Ah, _he_ is not others," she murmured, with an accent that touched the
older woman.
"You judge his mother."
"I don't; I don't!"
Mrs. Quentin pressed her point. "You judge yourself, then, as you would
be in my position--and your verdict condemns me."
"How can you think it? It's because I appreciate the difference in our
point of view that I find it so difficult to defend myself--"
"Against what?"
"The temptation to imagine that I might be as _you_ are--feeling as I
do."
Mrs. Quentin rose with a sigh. "My child, in my day love was less
subtle." She added, after a moment, "Alan is a perfect son."
"Ah, that again--that makes it worse!"
"Worse?"
"Just as your goodness does, your sweetness, your immense indulgence in
letting me discuss things with you in a way that must seem almost an
impertinence."
Mrs. Quentin's smile was not without irony. "You must remember that I
do it for Alan."
"That's what I love you for!" the girl instantly returned; and again
her tone touched her listener.
"And yet you're sacrificing him--and to an idea!"
"Isn't it to ideas that all the sacrifices that were worth while have
been made?"
"One may sacrifice one's self."
Miss Fenno's color rose. "That's what I'm doing," she said gently.
Mrs. Quentin took her hand. "I believe you are," she answered. "And it
isn't true that I speak only for Alan. Perhaps I did when I began; but
now I want to plead for you too--against yourself." She paused, and
then went on with a deeper note: "I have let you, as you say, speak
your mind to me in terms that some women might have resented, because I
wanted to show you how little, as the years go on, theories, ideas,
abstract conceptions of life, weigh against the actual, against the
particular way in which life presents itself to us--to women
especially. To decide beforehand exactly how one ought to behave in
given circumstances is like deciding that one will follow a certain
direction in crossing an unexplored country. Afterward we find that we
must turn out for the obstacles--cross the rivers where they're
shallowest--take the tracks that others have beaten--make all sorts of
unexpected concessions. Life is made up of compromises: that is what
youth refuses to understand. I've lived long enough to doubt whether
any real good ever came of sacrificing beautiful facts to even more
beautiful theories. Do I seem casuistical? I don't know--there may be
losses either way...but the love of the man one loves...of the child
one loves... that makes up for everything...."
She had spoken with a thrill which seemed to communicate itself to the
hand her listener had left in hers. Her eyes filled suddenly, but
through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last desperate
denial:
"Don't you see it's because I feel all this that I mustn't--that I
can't?"