More like that, Bill agreed, but he didn’t seem to think that it was exactly that, either.
“The only word that seems at all right,” he said at last, “is understanding. Like seeing quite clearly, after being in a dusky room for a long time. That’s not at all a good illustration either. But you know the muddled sort of way in which one sees most people—wondering about them, if they’re interesting, or just accepting them, if they aren’t? With her, it’s been completely and absolutely different from the very start. I seemed able to see her quite clearly—her realest self—and to understand things about her that I’d never dreamed of before.”
He made this explanation very haltingly, and although Mrs. Fazackerly’s perceptions instantly recognized his sincerity, she could not feel that his rather incoherent words had brought much enlightenment to her.
“I wish I could say it better,” Bill observed wistfully. “I’d like to make you understand.”
“I do,” Nancy began instinctively, and then she honestly added, “at least, I don’t. And I’m so afraid—please, please forgive me, Bill—I’m so dreadfully afraid that you’re going to be unhappy.”
And Bill said, “I shouldn’t wonder.”
Then they left the region of speculation, and Mrs. Fazackerly asked him what the exact position was.
“Well, we thought that Harter would let her have a divorce. At least I thought so. Diamond was never sure that he would.”
“And he won’t?”
“No, he won’t. He said to-day that he never would. Although he knows that she’s unhappy with him—and he with her, for the matter of that—he says he won’t let her have a divorce. And I shouldn’t think that he was the sort of fellow who’d change his mind.”