"I was glad when you went away, Mary. It was wonderful having this place, like a home all our own. And then you came back." Jean smiled, thinking of the tragedy of the discovered vegetables, and how miserable she had been.
She told of sending Martha away, of Gregory's going to Maine, and of her own readjustment toward Margaret and Puck; of Gregory's winning the contest, his removal to Chicago and of the long months since, trying to hold intact the beauty of their love, through hurried meetings, flying trips, moods of forced gayety clutched tight against the force of circumstance always tearing them apart. And the terrible white light of logic illuminating the end.
"It will come, Mary; it must. I can see it like a wall, standing there at the end of—one year, two, five perhaps. But—it will end."
For the first time Jean's voice shook. Nor was Mary's steady as she said, after a long pause:
"But you've had it, Jean. Nothing can take it away."
Jean shook her head. "I know, Mary. But that's like the rubbish that's talked about not growing old. It's the theory of those who have never had a thing—that the memory of it can be enough."
Dr. Mary winced and lit a cigarette. "Maybe it is."
"When you've had a thing and—it goes—you have two pains, because the memory and the happiness hurts as much as not having it any more. And then—there's a third—the nothingness of everything else. That's the worst, that awful, dead emptiness, where nothing counts and you just go on because there's not even the will to stop. And the terrible, empty future."
"But he isn't dead, Jean. And you have your work. You can write, and even if you can't be always together, there——"
"I know. Those things are a lot when they're a part, but they're nothing at all when they're all. I have less even than Margaret has. Yes, less even than that. She has the shell and I have the kernel, but the kernel has to have its own shell or it dies. No marriage certificate in the world could make her really his wife, but no blindness in the world can keep our love what it is really—like this. I don't believe that society invented marriage because a man wanted to keep one woman as his property or because women wanted to be supported. They were just groping blindly to keep love alive, to bind it fast, that biggest, freest thing in all the world, and keep it safe for itself."