"Because I'd married him before I'd married you—for one thing."
"Oh, but I shouldn't go into that, you know. That would be over and done with."
"Would it?"
"Well, wouldn't it?"
She mused silently, while the little girl with the bare legs continued to croon to her doll with a kind of chant:
"Dors, mon enfant, dors.... Ta mère ne reviendra plus ce soir.... Elle dîne avec le beau monsieur que tu as vu.... Elle te dira bonne nuit demain.... Dors; sois sage—et dors"
"Even if it were over and done with," Edith said at last, "the fact would remain—supposing I married you—that your wife had had a life in which you possessed no share—a very living life, I assure you—and that her memories of that life were perhaps the most vital thing about her."
"Oh, but I say!" he protested. "That's the very reason I'm so fond of you. I can see all that already. I shouldn't interfere with it, you know. It's what makes the difference between you and other women. It's like the difference between—" He sought for a simile. "It's like the difference between a book that's been written and printed, and has something in it, and a silly blank book."
Her eyes filled with tears. "I wonder if you have the least idea of what you're saying?"
He sought for a more effective figure of speech. "If you were walking about your place, and found something wounded, you'd want to take it home and tend it, wouldn't you, till you'd put it to rights again? And the more you tended it the fonder of it you'd be. But you wouldn't stop to ask whether a boy had thrown a stone at it or whether it had been attacked by its mate. You'd let all that alone—and just tend it."