"But it is terrible in any case."
"Not least for the runaways. Now it will be the turn of the man who took all the consequences on himself. He will be paid out."
"And so will she."
The story was as follows. The now divorced married pair had met three years before in a watering-place, and passed through all the stages of being in love in the normal way. They discovered, as usual, that they had been born for the special purpose of meeting each other and wandering through life hand in hand. In order to be worthy of her he gave up all doubtful habits and refined his language and his morals. She seemed to him an angel sent by God to open his eyes and to point him upwards. He overcame the usual difficulties regarding the publishing of the banns, convinced that those very difficulties were placed in his way in order to give him an opportunity of showing his courage and energy.
They read the scandalous anonymous letters which generally follow engagements together, and put them in the fire. She wept, it is true, over the wickedness of men, but he said the purpose of it was to test their faith in each other.
The period of their betrothal was one long intoxication. He declared that he did not need to drink any more, for her presence made him literally drunk. Once in a way they felt the weirdness of the solitude which surrounded them, for their friends had given them up, considering themselves superfluous.
"Why do people avoid us?" she asked one evening as they walked outside the town.
"Because," he answered, "men run away when they see happiness."
They did not notice that they themselves avoided intercourse with others, as they actually did. He, especially, showed a real dread of meeting his old bachelor friends, for they seemed to him like enemies, and he saw their sceptical grimaces, which were only too easy to interpret.