“Because I’m sick of pretending that you’re my wife when you’re not—when you won’t be.”
She looked at him sadly.
“If I were your wife you’d have to go on pretending. You’d have to pretend that I’d never been—anything else. And our friends would have to pretend that they believed what you pretended.”
Gannett pulled off the sofa-tassel and flung it away.
“You’re impossible,” he groaned.
“It’s not I—it’s our being together that’s impossible. I only want you to see that marriage won’t help it.”
“What will help it then?”
She raised her head.
“My leaving you.”
“Your leaving me?” He sat motionless, staring at the tassel which lay at the other end of the room. At length some impulse of retaliation for the pain she was inflicting made him say deliberately: