As Oldmeadow spoke these Words, Adrienne turned away vehemently, and then stood still, as though arrested in her impulse of flight by an irresistible desire to listen. “Barney does not want to see me,” she said, speaking with difficulty.
“You think so,” said Oldmeadow. “And he may think so. But you ought to see each other at a time like this. He may be ordered to France at any time now.” He could not see her face.
“Do you mean,” she said, after a moment, keeping the rigidity of her listening poise, “that he won’t come to say good-bye?”
“I know nothing at all,” said Oldmeadow. “I can only infer how far the mischief between you has gone. And I’m most frightfully sorry for it. I’ve been sorry for Barney; but now I’m sorry for you, too. I think you’re being unfairly treated. But yours have been the mistakes, Mrs. Barney, and it’s for you to take the first step.”
“Barney doesn’t want to see me,” she repeated, and she went on, while he heard, growing in her voice, the note of the old conviction: “He has made mistakes, too. He has treated me unfairly, too. I can’t take the first step.”
“Don’t you love him, then?” said Oldmeadow, and in his voice was the note of the old harshness.
“Does he love me?” she retorted, turning now, with sudden fire, and fixing her eyes upon him. “Why should he think I want to see him if he doesn’t want to see me? Why should I love, if he doesn’t? Why should I sue to Barney?”
“Oh,” Oldmeadow almost groaned. “Don’t take that line; don’t, I beg of you. You’re both young. And you’ve hurt him so. You’ve meant to hurt him; I’ve seen it! I’ve seen it, Mrs. Barney. If you’ll put by your pride everything can grow again.”
“No! no! no!” she cried almost violently, and he saw that she was trembling. “Some things don’t grow again! It’s not like plants, Mr. Oldmeadow. Some things are like living creatures; and they can die. They can die,” she repeated, now walking rapidly away from him out into the large quadrangle with its grass plot cut across by the late sunshine. He followed her for a moment and he heard her say, as she went: “It’s worse, far worse, not to mean to hurt. It’s worse to care so little that you don’t know when you are hurting.”
“No, it’s not,” said Oldmeadow. “That’s only being stupid; not cruel.”