“What are you going to do?”
“I shall sell out my stock in the mine, and resign my position as vice-president. It may take a week or two to do that. After I have converted the stock into money, it will be necessary to put it into some good security, bonds probably, which will require no attention. That will leave me free to go abroad, and stay as long as I please, without having to bother about business affairs. We can go to Egypt, to Persia, to India, to Japan, and when we come back—” He hesitated, halted.
“When we come back! Can we ever come back, dear?” she asked timidly.
“Of course we can. Your husband will know that we love each other; and surely he will make it possible for us to be married. After all, you have never been happy with him. He should be glad to see you happy with someone else.”
The matter-of-fact way in which he spoke of their future jarred upon her. It was one thing to dream of running away to some imagined country of palms and eternal summer, in an ecstasy of love, but the details, the sordid necessities of the thing, seemed hard and cruel, even when viewed through the rosy spectacles of love. To think of coming back to New York and the chilly isolation of the social outcast did not appeal to her—it was like awakening from the dream to realities anything but pleasant. He must have seen her distaste, or felt it, for he changed the subject abruptly, merely remarking that he had decided to go to Denver that night.
“To-night?” she asked—“Why to-night? You have only just come from there.”
“The sooner I go, the better. Matters are in such shape now that I can sell out my interests quickly. I found that out, while I was there. If I wait, it may be more difficult. The company is thinking of taking over some new properties, and that will require considerable money. I had better go at once.”
She trembled at the thought of what it all meant, but said no word to discourage him. Somehow the very success which had crowned her dreams now seemed to make them less beautiful—less to be desired. Why couldn’t they just go on loving each other, without all this—this upsetting of things? She suddenly found herself blushing at the realization of just what it was that her thoughts actually meant.
The run back to town was cheerless and cold, and singularly symbolic of her state of mind. The brightness of the morning had faded before the bank of ashen-colored clouds that whirled up from the southeast with a suggestion of winter in their formless masses. West drove the car at top speed, as though he, too, felt the approach of something chilling, an aftermath to their dreams. It was nearly five when they reached the ferry in Long Island City, and the lights in the stores and along the streets had already begun to sparkle through the gathering mists of evening.