“Well, I’m glad you aren’t resentful. After all, why should we be enemies? George’s happiness means more than anything else to us both.”
“And you are sure you know best what is for George’s happiness?”
“I know that subterfuge and lies and dishonesty cannot bring happiness.” Rose Morrison flung out her arms with a superb gesture. “Oh, I realize that it is a big thing, a great thing, I am asking of you. But in your place, if I stood in his way, I should so gladly sacrifice myself for his sake I should give him his freedom. I should acknowledge his right to happiness, to self-development.”
A bitter laugh broke from Margaret’s lips. What a jumble of sounds these catchwords of the new freedom made! What was this self-development which could develop only through the sacrifice of others? How would these immature theories survive the compromises and concessions and adjustments which made marriage permanent?
“I cannot feel that our marriage has interfered with his development,” she rejoined presently.
“You may be right,” Rose Morrison conceded the point. “But to-day he needs new inspiration, new opportunities. He needs the companionship of a modern mind.”
“Yes, he has kept young at my cost,” thought the older woman. “I have helped by a thousand little sacrifices, by a thousand little cares and worries, to preserve this unnatural youth which is destroying me. I have taken over the burden of details in order that he might be free for the larger interests of life. If he is young to-day, it is at the cost of my youth.”
For the second time that day, as she sat there in silence, with her eyes on the blooming face of Rose Morrison, a wave of peace, the peace of one who has been shipwrecked and then swept far off into some serene haven, enveloped her. Something to hold by, that at least she had found. The law of sacrifice, the ideal of self-surrender, which she had learned in the past. For twenty years she had given freely, abundantly, of her best; and to-day she could still prove to him that she was not beggared. She could still give the supreme gift of her happiness. “How he must love you!” she exclaimed. “How he must love you to have hurt me so much for your sake! Nothing but a great love could make him so cruel.”
“He does love me,” answered Rose Morrison, and her voice was like the song of a bird.
“He must.” Margaret’s eyes were burning, but no tears came. Her lips felt cracked with the effort she made to keep them from trembling. “I think if he had done this thing with any other motive than a great love, I should hate him until I died.” Then she rose and held out her hand. “I shall not stand in your way,” she added.