Mary Olivier: a Life

by May Sinclair

VII.

They were talking to-night about Richard and his wife. They said he wasn't happy; he wasn't in love with her.

He never had been; she knew it; yet she took him, and tied him to her, an old woman, older than Richard, with grey hair.

Oh well—she had had to wait for him longer than he waited for me, and she's in love with him still. She's making it impossible for him to see me.

Then I shan't see him. I don't want him to see me if it hurts her. I don't want her to be hurt.

I wonder if she knows? They know. I can hear them talking about me when
I've gone.

…"Mary Olivier, the woman who translated Euripides."

…"Mary Olivier, the woman Nicholson discovered."

…"Mary Olivier, the woman who was Nicholson's mistress."

Richard's mistress—I know that's what they say, but I can't feel that they're saying it about me. It must be somebody else, some woman I never heard of.