He listened, skeptically marking the difference between the vehemence of the words she used and the lack of conviction in the voice that uttered them. “Never mind, Martha,” he said at last. “I see you believe it and agree with me.”
“I don’t,” she still protested; but her tone was now so feeble that it only proved her determined never to make the open admission of what she denied. “It would be too tragic.”
“Why?”
“To think of that poor old woman——”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I’m afraid it must irritate her now if she knows.”
“To think of her——” Martha said. “Poor thing! I mean it would be too tragic to think of her hoping and planning such—such preposterousness!”
At this Harlan looked at her so sharply, so gravely, that he seemed to ask much more than appeared upon the surface of his question: “But would it be preposterous? Suppose Lena and Dan should——”
“Separate?” she said, as he stopped at the word. “They never will.”
“But I asked you, if they should?”
Martha shook her head, smiling faintly; and she looked away from him—far away, it seemed—as she spoke. “People don’t stay ardently in love forever, Harlan. I don’t suppose anybody stays in love with anybody—forever. I think I used to believe I’d always be in love with Dan, and in a way that was true—whatever is left in me of the girl I used to be will always be in love with the boy he used to be. But I don’t know where that boy is any more. Do you understand?”