“Then it must be alimony.”
“We have heard nothing of a divorce.”
“I think, when people are married, they should live together until death parts them. And if they won’t, they should make a clean breast of it, and let folks know exactly where they stand, inside the law or out of it,” Mrs. Flitch announced virtuously.
“Nothing like that is ever hidden. In time I suppose something clarifying will happen.”
“Well, I hope it won’t be disgraceful.”
“It is not easy for scandal to touch a woman who devotes her life to bringing up children. Did you ever think of that?” Mrs. Arnold shot back. “I think we should stand by Mrs. Cutter and help her all we can with this baby,” she added.
“Oh, I’m willing to do my duty. But she never gives me the chance to do anything. I’m the mother of five healthy children, yet she will pass by my door and ask somebody about that baby’s diet who never had a child,” Mrs. Flitch complained.
Thus the wind of private opinion, which is more dangerous than public opinion, veered and changed toward Helen Cutter. Her skies cleared, without her ever having suspected the fury with which they were charged against her. Of all the good women I have ever known, she was the least concerned for her reputation. And this is one of the weaknesses of that class, a craven, almost guilty fear of evil tongues, which more vulnerable women do not share.
There were broken hours, I suppose, when some fleeting vision of the past absorbed her peace and joy. We never do escape those whispering tongues of memory that make speech with us from the years behind us. Sometimes in the late summer afternoon Helen, walking in her garden, would halt, transfixed as if a blow had fallen upon her. For the briefest moment she would see her young husband swinging along the path that led through the old shrubbery to this garden, his eyes fixed brightly upon her, the dear object of his love and hopes. And her heart leaped as in those first happy years. Then she would close her eyes, not always in time to hold back the tears. But if one is proud enough, there are tears which leave no trace upon a woman’s face.
More frequently however, it was that last sight she had of him in the dining room of the Inn, held so firmly in the grasp of another woman that he dared not to rise when she, his wife, passed so near her skirts almost brushed him. She would never forget the livid shame and horror when he looked back and caught her eye nor the woman’s crackling laugh. Sometimes this scene flared before her, and she saw herself, with her hand still pressed to her breast, making her blind, staggering escape. It was a kind of insurance she carried against the awakening of the old tenderness for her husband.