“It’s worse for Renie,” she said soberly. “She slept right in mother’s room. I just had the door open between. I’d hate to have Renie wake up.”
“So we’d better not talk, eh?” said Blakie.
“I guess probably we hadn’t,” Martha agreed.
She fell asleep there in his arms. Presently he carried her back to her bed, and sat there beside her in the dark.
Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment! It was bad enough for a mature and armored spirit, but for children, two little loving, bewildered children—what would it do to them?
They were too young to be critical. They gave only love to both parents, making no comparisons; but as they grew older it would not be so. Suppose he succeeded in his attempt to make them appreciate a gracious, well ordered life? Then, when they were with Katherine, they would suffer—would suffer all the more because they loved her. Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment!
“It can’t be like this,” he said to himself.
It was not for them to suffer, to make readjustments, to have their love so tormented, their faithfulness so tried. No, let the guilty suffer, not these innocent ones!
He was guilty—he knew it; and Katherine was guilty. They had had a beautiful and invaluable thing, and they had destroyed it by a thousand almost imperceptible blows. It was gone now, and could never again be restored; but it need not have perished. If he had been less critical, if she had been less willful, if only there had been a little more patience and generosity on either side, their love could have lived.
Perhaps they were not well suited to each other. What did that matter? He and his business partner were ill suited to each other, but it was expedient for them to get on peacefully together, and they did. His mother had been a very exasperating old lady, but he had considered it his duty to get on with her, and he had done so. He had ardently disliked the captain of his football eleven at college, but as a matter of course he had mastered the dislike. He had learned to get on amicably with all sorts of people; but this woman whom he had chosen—