"Ah,—you could keep it, you could keep it—if you tried." And now his eyes pleaded—pleaded with her, for her own life's sake, to keep what was hers. "You have only to show her to him, as you did to me."
"You think—I could do that!—to my child!"—Through the darkness her white face looked a wild reproach at him.
He seized her hands:—"It's to do her no wrong!—It's only to be true, consciously, to him, as you were true, unconsciously, to me. It's only, not to let her rob you—not to let her rob him."
"Jack," she breathed heavily, "these are things that cannot be said."
"They must—they must—now, between us. I have my right. I've cared enough—to do anything, so that she should not rob you!" Jack groaned.
"She has not robbed me. It left me;—it went to her;—I saw it all. Even if I had been base enough, even if I had tried to keep it by showing her to him—as you say so horribly,—even then I should not have kept it. He would not have seen. Don't you understand;—he is not that sort of man. She will always be blue to him, and I will always be gold—though perhaps, now, a little tarnished. That's what is so beautiful in him—and so stupid. He doesn't see colors, as you and I do, Jack. That's what makes me sure that this is the happiest of fortunes for them both."
He had held her hands, gazing at her downcast face, its strength speaking from the shadow, its pain hidden from him, and now, before her resolution and her gentleness, he bent his head upon the hands he held. "Oh, but you, you, you!—It's you whose life is shattered!" broke from him with a sob.
For a long while she stood silent above him, her hands enfolding his, as though she comforted his grief. He found himself at length kissing the gentle hands, with tears, and then, caressing his bent head with a light touch, she said: "Don't you see that the time has come for me to accept shatterings as in the order of things, dear Jack?—My mistake has been to believe that life can begin over again. It can't. One uses it up—merely by waiting. I've been an incurable girl till now;—and now, I've crashed from girlhood to middle-age in a week! It's been a crash, of course; the sort of crash one never mends of; but after to-day, after you sent me off with him, Jack, and I allowed myself, in spite of all my dread, my pride, my relinquishment, just one flicker of girlish hope,—after all this, I think that I must put on caps to show that I am really old at last."
He lifted his head and looked at her. Her face was lovely, with the silver disk of the moon above it and, about it, the mystery and sadness of the tranquil woods. So lovely, so young, with almost the trembling touch of a tender mockery, like the trembling of moonlit water, upon it. And all that he found to say at last was:—"What a fool he is."
She really smiled then, though tears sprang to her eyes with her comprehension of all that the helpless, boyish words struggled to subdue.