XXX
It seemed to me, at the time, that I had showed myself very weak in the conference in the taxi-cab. It seemed to me that my acquiescence in Fulton's proposals reflected on the strength of my love for Lucy. Perhaps it did. But in the clearer light of today it seems to me that to his questions I made the only answers possible; and that only a demented person could have found serious flaws in the logic of his position.
When we had parted, I walked for a long time in the most crowded streets, trying to reconcile myself to the long separation from Lucy, and to the weakness which I thought I had betrayed in agreeing to it.
Could I endure that separation? The world would be empty with no Lucy to go to, no Lucy even to hear from. I loved her too much to part with all but the thought of her. It did not seem possible that the mere passage of time could dull the edge of my passion. Yet cold memory blinked at this very possibility.
I had parted from other women, thinking that thoughts of them must fill the rest of my life to the exclusion of everything else; only to find that after a little lapse of time their images faded, and even the memory of what they had been to me had no power to think.
So might it be with Lucy. "You know it might," said cold memory. "Don't be a fool—you think it won't, but you know it might."
"But," I argued, "this is different. No other woman ever loved me as she does. I may be a fool, but her eyes have spoken, and I know the truth when I hear it."
"She does love you," said my other self, which I have called cold memory, "and she did love him, and before his time, others, if only briefly. Without the sight of you to feed on, her love will starve and die. It is almost always so."
"Almost."
"There are exceptions. Is it likely, considering your records, that you and she will be an exception? It is not likely."
It wasn't. John Fulton was probably right. He believed that time would cure us, and almost the whole of human experience agreed with him.
And wouldn't it be better if we were cured? Far better. I had to admit that. We ought, indeed, to hope that we should be cured; to help with all our strength in the effecting of that cure. And conversely, Lucy ought to try to return to her affection for John and to her duty.
Suddenly I felt cold and shivery as before undergoing an operation.
Poor little Lucy! Even now she must be listening to John's ultimatum, as I had listened, but with this difference; she could not see the justice and the logic of his position. She would only see that she was being cruelly hurt, and thwarted, and disappointed; that she was being curbed and punished by forces too strong for her to cope with. And I pictured her, all reserve gone at last, a tortured child—just sobbing. It seemed to me that I must go to her or die. And indeed I went a little way toward their hotel. Then I thought, perhaps her sobs would move him to a change of heart. Perhaps he will weaken, and let her go. Upon the strength of this thought I returned to my own hotel, rearing a blissful edifice of immediate happiness.
I sat in the lobby in a position of reading, a newspaper before my face; but I did not read. I was listening for the boy who would page me to the telephone. Many names were called in the lobby, but it was two o'clock before I started at the sound of my own.
Fulton was at the other end of the telephone, not Lucy. He sounded very much upset and depressed: "Lucy would like to see you right away, if you can come round."
"Of course."
We said no more.
Her face was white and tear-stained. I had no sooner closed the door of their sitting-room behind me, than she flung herself upon my breast and burst into a storm of sobs. After a long time words began to mingle with the sobs.
"It will kill me. Why does he want me to die?… I've only got you.… I want to belong to you—to you."
I talked and I talked, and I soothed and I soothed, but she was sick with grief and pain and a kind of insane resentment, as if she had gone through a major operation without an anesthetic. It would have been horrible to see anybody suffer so. And she was the woman I loved! The strain was so great upon me that at last my powers of resistance snapped. I flung honor to the winds, and became strong with resolution. And now my words seemed to pierce her consciousness and to calm her.
"It's all right, Lucy." I had to speak loudly at first, as if she was deaf. "You shan't suffer like this. I tell you you shan't—not if I am damned to hell."
I knew now that she was listening, the sobs became muffled and less frequent. "It's you and me against the world now," I said. "There'll be no more flimflamming. I promised John to wait a year. That doesn't matter. A promise made at your expense won't hold.… When is your husband coming back?"
"…hour," was all the answer I got.…
"Then there's not much time left. Try to pull yourself together. We've got to make all our plans right now, and there's not much time."
"You will take me away?"
"Of course. Now listen. There's no sense in putting your husband on his guard. Let him think that we are both agreed to the year's probation. I'll look up things and engage passage. I'll do that this afternoon. Tonight I'll go to Hot Springs to see my father and get money. My own balance is very low, unfortunately. Day after tomorrow I'll be in town again. Now, how are we going to communicate?"
I can't say that she was calm now, but she no longer sobbed, and her mind was in working order again.
"By telephone," she said. "Every morning when I know John's plans for the day I'll let you know, and so you'll know when to call me up."
Already the anticipations of our great adventure were bringing back the color to her cheeks and the sparkle to her eyes. I smiled at her. "Don't be too cheerful," I said; "we might get ourselves suspected."
"Couldn't we just tell John that we had decided to go—and go?"
"Better not."
"I hate to deceive and play act and be underhanded."
"So do I—but—Lucy, darling, you're going to trust me in more important things than this. I think my way is best. We don't want any more agonies and recriminations and scenes. Do we?"
I took her in my arms and whispered, "It's only a few days now, but I don't see how I can wait. I don't see how."
And she burrowed with her face between my cheek and shoulder, and whispered back, "And I don't see how I can wait."
There was a little space of very tense silence, during which my eyes roved to the little silver traveling-clock on the mantel, and then I said in a voice that shook:
"I'd better get out before he comes back."