The Bent Twig

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Arnold attempted no self-exculpation. He sat down by her, his riding-crop across his knees. "Could you—do you feel like telling me about it?" he asked.

She nodded. It came to her like an inspiration that only if she opened her heart utterly to Arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. "There's not much to tell. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps there's too much to tell, after all, I didn't know what any of it meant till now. It's the strangest thing, Arnold, how little people know what is growing strong in their lives! I supposed all the time I only liked him because he was so rich. I thought it must be so. I thought that was the kind of girl I was. And then, besides, I'd—perhaps you didn't know how much I'd liked Felix Morrison."

Arnold nodded. "I sort of guessed so. You were awfully game, then, Sylvia. You're game now—it's awfully white to fall in love with a man because he's rich and then stick to him when he's—"

Sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "Oh, you don't understand. It's not because I think I ought to—Heavens, no! Let me try to tell you. Listen! When the news came, about this Colorado business—I was about crazy for a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answer his letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had just crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then. I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till I could think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to give him up, never to see him again—Felix was there, you know—I'd decided to give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I was that base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing to take me back?—now after this long time? It's a month since I got his letter."

Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are you sure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would be pretty hard on Austin if you—afterwards—he's such a square, straight sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to—"

Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous: "Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn't anything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think about it—and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser I grew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hung on to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killed myself thinking—thinking—All I'd done was to think out an ingenious, low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then, after Judith's cablegram came, I started home—Arnold, what a journey that was!—and I found—I found Mother was gone, just gone away forever—and I found Father out of his head with sorrow—and Judith told me about—about her trouble. It was like going through a long black corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the other side. But when I did—A door that I couldn't ever, ever break down—somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone through it into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thing Mother did for me—what nobody but Mother could have done. I don't want to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matter to me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you can have them without losing something finer. And I suppose some people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But mine wouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all—it all seems so unimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing matters now but Austin. He is the only thing that has lived on for me. I'm down on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if he can't forgive me—even if he doesn't care for me any more—even if I shouldn't ever see him again—even if he should die—he would be like Mother, he couldn't die, for me. He's there. I know what he is. Somehow everything's all right—because there's Austin."

She broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. He raised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. Sylvia went on. "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this Colorado business. It may be that it was quixotic on Austin's part. Maybe it has upset business conditions out there a lot. It's too complicated to be sure about how anything, I suppose, is likely to affect an industrial society. But I'm sure about how it has affected the people who live in the world—it's a great golden deed that has enriched everybody—not just Austin's coal-miners, but everybody who had heard of it. The sky is higher because of it. Everybody has a new conception of the good that's possible. And then for me, it means that a man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it—why, with such a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, can be sure of at least loyally trying to meet the debts life brings. It's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them—and it's too horrible if you don't."

She stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of the unpaid debts so luridly present to her mind.

"Sylvia," said Arnold, hesitating, "Sylvia, all this sounds so—look here, are you sure you're in love with Austin?"

She looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "Aren't there as many ways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "I don't know—I don't know if it's what everybody would call being in love—but—" She met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened her heart to him with a look. "I can't live without Austin," she said quickly, in a low tone.