Nancy had risen and, as they entered, she came forward, trying to smile and holding out her hand to each. But Oldmeadow was staying there. He was not going in half an hour. There was no reason why Nancy should give him her hand and Barney, quietly, took both her hands in his. “It’s good-bye, then, Nancy, isn’t it?” he said.
They stood there in the firelight together, his dear young people, both so pale, both so fixedly looking at each other, and Nancy still tried to smile as she said, “It’s dear of you to have come.” But her face betrayed her. It was sick with the fear that, in conquering her own heart, she should hurt Barney’s; Barney’s, whom she might never see again. Oldmeadow went on to the fire and stood, his back to them, looking down at it.
“Oh, no, it’s not; not dear at all,” Barney returned. “You knew I’d come to say good-bye, of course. Why haven’t you been over to see me, you and Aunt Monica? I’ve asked you often enough.”
“You mustn’t scold me to-day, Barney, since it’s good-bye. We couldn’t come,” said Nancy.
“It’s never I who scold you. It’s you who scold me. Not openly, I know,” said Barney, “but by implication; punish me, by implication. I quite understood why you haven’t come. Well, I want things to be clear now. Roger’s here, and I want to say them before him, because he’s been in it all since the beginning. It’s because of Adrienne you’ve never come; and changed so much in every way towards me.”
He had kept her hands till then, but Oldmeadow heard now that she drew away from him. For a moment she did not speak; and then it was not to answer him. “Have you said good-bye to her, Barney?”
“No; I haven’t,” Barney answered. “I’m not going to say good-bye to Adrienne, Nancy. It must be plain to you by this time that Adrienne and I have parted. What did it all mean but that?”
“It didn’t mean that to her. She never dreamed it was meaning that,” said Nancy.
“Well, she said it, often enough,” Barney retorted.
“Barney, please listen to me,” said Nancy. “You must let me speak. She never dreamed it was meaning that. If she was unkind to you it was because she could not believe it would ever mean parting. She had started wrong; by holding you to blame; after the baby; when you and Roger so hurt her pride. And then she wasn’t able to go back. She wasn’t able to see it all so differently—just to get you back. It would have seemed wrong to her; a weakness, just because she longed so. And then, most of all, she believed you loved her enough to come of yourself.”