She smiled at that—a small and pitiful smile.
"Cheer up," she said; "lots of people have got really married and then parted, as they say, at the church door. This is a perfect spot for a parting," she added, a little wildly, waving toward a corn-chandler's and a tobacconist's; "or, if your chivalry won't let you desert me in this desolate neighborhood . . . let me tell you something, something to remember; you'll find it wonderfully soothing and helpful. From this moment henceforth, forever, every place in the world where we are will be the best place for parting—if we want to part. Isn't that almost as good as the freedom you're crying your eyes out for?"
"I'm not," he said, absurdly; but she went on.
"Do you think I don't understand? Do you think I don't know how you feel twenty times more bound to me than if we were really married? Perhaps it's only because everything's so new and nasty. Perhaps you won't feel like that when you get used to things. But if you do—if you don't get over it then—it's all been for nothing, and we might as well have parted among the pigeons."
She walked faster and faster.
"What we have to remember—oh yes, it's for me as well as you—what we've got to remember is that we're to be perfectly free. We needn't stay with each other an instant after we wish not to stay. Doesn't that help?"
"You're a witch," he said, keeping pace with her quickened steps, "but you don't know everything. And you're tired and—"
"I know quite enough," she said.
Never had he felt more helpless. Their aimless walking was leading them into narrower and poorer streets where her bridal whiteness caught the eye and turned the head of every passer-by. The pavements were choked with slow passengers and playing children, small, dirty, pale, with the anxious expression of little old men and women.