Roger sat fingering the letter. Now that he was sharing this with Katya, emotion was rapidly chilling to intellectual speculation. What would have happened between him and Anne if they had not done this thing? Would they really have adjusted in time? Would they have bickered to weariness and dropped at last from spiritual exhaustion to any compromise that held outward peace? Would he have fallen to the revolting relationship suggested by Katya?
Why had Katya said that? From her knowledge of him or from her own experience? She had spoken so earnestly, as if her certainty were a concrete thing she was thrusting into his keeping. It was no general warning gathered from vague reflection of life or observation. Katya knew—either herself or him to the deepest recesses.
What was the source of Katya's knowledge?
She was so wise and still and dark, like the night. Gazing at her now, Roger felt as if he were gazing into the well of human impulse, weakness and strength. In it lay understanding of the death of love between himself and Anne.
"What is it?" she demanded turning suddenly from the night outside.
"I was thinking of something you said to me and wondering why you said it."
"Yes. What was it I said?"
"You said that if I did not separate from Anne I would stay and——" It was difficult to say even to Katya and he stumbled, annoyed at the touch of scorn that came to Katya's eyes. It was like the first look she had ever given him,—the nice small boy who had called a silly meeting. "That there would be other children," he flung at her, "and that I would then see my duty clearer to stay. Did you mean that I was so bound in physical ties that I could not break them. Is that what you meant?"
Katya nodded. "If you hadn't separated, what else? If you had gone on living with her, you would have gone on 'loving.' Nothing else is possible. And because you are an idealist and must have harmony, you would have tied together the soul and body, because only so would you not have been ashamed before yourself. You would have done what many millions have done and will do till Time ends. You would have come to deny the existence of Love. You would have talked of the death of physical passion and the survival of something else, in the large vague words that dead souls use, like you talked of 'adjusting.' You would have stifled the body because you could not make it one with the soul. Or—you would have stifled the soul. With you I do not know—which it would have been I am not sure. But now your soul has a chance. Perhaps, some day, you will find another woman and then——"
"Never," Roger began vehemently, and stopped.