“I see you’ve heard the story,” he said. “Well, something of that sort did happen. But—”
“So it’s true!” She said it triumphantly. “I’m so tired of all this talk that never gets anywhere. You don’t know how much you and Rose-Ann have meant to me—your marriage. It convinced me that there was something to modernism after all.”
“So you doubted it—in spite of all Clive’s talk?”
“Yes—I did. Because it was just talk.... Look at me! Do you doubt that I wanted everything Clive told me about? work—adventure—love.... I’ve wanted them all along. If Clive had only said, ‘Come with me to Chicago—’!”
“What did he say?”
“He left it to me to decide.... That was fair enough. If I didn’t have sense enough to decide by myself—. Only, I think he should have dropped me, let me alone. He’s been too patient. I’ve lost my respect for him.”
“What do you want him to do—make you marry him?”
“Not now. Three years ago I was foolish enough to believe in marriage. I couldn’t marry anybody now—least of all Clive: the man who taught me not to believe in marriage!”
“But you believe in—Rose-Ann’s and my marriage, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes!” There was a wealth of devoutness in her utterance, and her eyes opened wide as if in astonishment at her belief being questioned. “Of course. But that’s different.... You two,” she said, a little sadly, “are the only people in the world that I do believe in,—you and Rose-Ann. If you went back on me, and I felt that I was making a mistake in becoming a modern woman, why—” She laughed, and added, “No doubt my modernism seems ridiculous to you. I admit that it’s only talk, so far! I—why, I don’t even smoke cigarettes. Clive has been to immense pains to educate my mind; but my habits are still those of—of my middle-western childhood. It’s going to be strange.... I am a queer person. Restless, discontented, fed up on radical theories for three years.... Do I seem ridiculous to you?”