But when, stealing a glance toward Roger, she saw him staring out across the loft with lonely eyes, she would have had him happy at any price. To have his enthusiasm bubble over in gayety as it used to do, to feel him warmly happy, Katya would have freely given the years that remained. Standing at that terrible spot of middle ground, the future clear in the light of the past and perfect knowledge of self, looking back down the lonely years indifferently, through the future lonelier still, nothing mattered but to have Roger happy.
At last, one night in early April, a warm night of many stars, Katya rose from her machine and went to Roger sitting motionless at Black Tom's desk. It was late and the others had all gone long ago. As Katya took a seat on the window sill, Roger looked up, not concerned at all with this action of Katya's but with the confusion of his own thought. He had gone home to dinner that night, stirred by the soft spring warmth, to make an effort at some kind of adjustment with Anne. They had slipped so far now, to almost quarreling over the most trivial things. To-night Anne had objected to the way he sat at the table and asked with plaintive primness if the world would be saved any more quickly if every one slouched over his plate like a plow-hand. And he, in blind rage to smash that primness to bits, had deliberately done things to annoy her, until he felt the disgust in Anne's eyes flick him like whips. The remainder of the meal had been eaten in hasty silence and he had left immediately after.
What a thing to quarrel over!
Katya smoked through her cigarette and then said slowly:
"Why do you go on?"
So perfectly did it fit with Roger's thought, that he answered with no wonder at her understanding.
"I don't know."
There was a short silence before Katya added: "You ought never to have married her."
"I—suppose not. But it seemed——" Roger broke off, disturbed at discussing Anne with another. He shrugged and made a motion as if to go on with his work. But he felt Katya's look on him, and, after a moment, met it. Her concern was too deep for insincerity and he said thoughtfully:
"Love is a queer thing. One thinks it is going to last forever and bear any weight. Perhaps the very weight of the years themselves must break it."