Her hands moved to him across the cloth but Gregory's did not come to meet them.
"But I shall have to live there, Jean, for good; for several years anyhow. It will mean so many things. Here I should only be "that fellow who's building the Auditorium out in Chicago." I'm not young. I've got to get it all now, every scrap of it. I've got to, Jean. I've got to!"
Afterwards, Jean knew that in that moment she crossed a line and left something of herself behind forever. But now it must be the same as it had always been, until she was alone. If she yielded an inch, she would go plunging down into the emptiness.
"You do see, don't you?" Gregory's voice pleaded for her courage, but she did not answer, and he hurried on.
"If there were any other way, ... but there isn't. It will lead to all kinds of things. I've got to be there. Don't you see, dear?"
Why did he keep on saying that, over and over, as if she were a child? Why did he sit there, looking into his plate, as if he were hurting her only and against his will? Jean drew her hands back into her lap.
"Jean," he whispered, "Sweetheart, don't make it hard."
"I'm not going to. After all, you know,—Chicago's only eighteen hours away."
He looked up. "Well, I'll be damned! Do you know, Jean, I never thought of that?"
And he had not. It had seemed so final, such a complete upheaval of the present that he had pictured no thread running to the future. It would. Of course it would. Why shouldn't it? Jean would be the same. He would be the same. Each had his work. Their meetings would be farther apart, but freer. He would never have to leave Jean because he had promised to be home at a certain hour, nor invent explanations for Sunday tramps. In a way it would be more perfect, not less. And as soon as he had things going he would come back for a few days. Later he could come for longer. In summer, if he had a vacation, he would spend it with Jean.