He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion.
"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?"
She answered by embracing him.
"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use."
22
The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him. He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.
He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder.
The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do—ruin her and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him. His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in reality embracing marriage and not a man.
He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose. This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies.