Edith laughed.
“I don’t think I can, either,” she said; “but for a different reason. I can’t bear it because it is all too divine to be true. Why, Peggy, before another hour is over the swan will have come down the Scheldt, and Lohengrin will have stepped from it and said good-bye to it, and—and—well, it will be Hugh.”
“But aren’t you anxious, even?” asked Peggy. “How can you help being that?”
“Ah, I don’t see how I could be! Why, it’s Hugh. I was anxious enough about my own play, I confess—at least, I got past anxiety, and merely despaired. But I can be no more anxious about Hugh’s singing than I could about the sun’s rising in the morning. It is one of the perfectly certain things.”
She paused a moment.
“And even if it weren’t, even if the impossible happened and he sang badly, or broke down, do you know, Peggy, in my very particular and secret heart, I shouldn’t be sorry. You see, I should have to comfort him and make him happy again. Sometimes I almost want Hugh to be unhappy, so that I could do that for him. I think I could make him happy again whatever happened. And he has given me so much. He has given me life, he has made me see what life can be, and if a person who is utterly content, as I am, can long for anything, it is for that. He has given me all—all there is in the world, I think.”
She laughed.
“I remember your telling me not to be selfish,” she said, “and you asked me to spare Hugh. Oh, Peggy, what glorious mistakes a clever woman like you can make!”
Peggy beamed delightedly; her passion for seeing other people happy was being hugely satisfied at this moment.
“I just loved that telegram you and he sent me to say I wasn’t wanted,” she said. “If there is one thing nicer than being immensely wanted, it is not to be wanted at all for reasons like that.”