"You couldn't have lied about every meeting with Archie—lied as to where you were going and where you had been. Truth comes natural to you, even if you seem to have fallen down on some of the other virtues."
I knew that he was laboring under a great strain. And yet for the life of me I could not read any symptoms of that laboring in his face or voice. His voice was easy, casual, and tinged with humor. It was almost as if he was relieved to find two such inconsequential persons as Lucy and myself at the bottom of his troubles. Now and then his left eyebrow arched high on his forehead, and there would be a sharp sudden glance in the corresponding eye.
"I wonder," he said, turning to me, "if people in your situation ever look at it from the critical outsider's point of view. Have you considered that a passion for something forbidden is not a natural, not a respectable passion? According to all moral and social laws Lucy is a forbidden object for your love and vice versa. People are not going to think well of you two."
"Oh, we know that," said Lucy, wearily.
"My dear Lucy, you mustn't show signs of distress so early in the game. What we are discussing, or trying to throw a little light on, is the subject which just now, by all accounts, should interest you more than anything else in the world. Furthermore, I really must insist on consideration for myself and the children."
"No amount of talk ever made me do right—or wrong," said Lucy; "I just do right or wrong, and of course you think this is wrong. So what's the use?"
"Think it wrong," exclaimed Fulton, "of course I do. Don't you?" His voice expressed almost horrified surprise. "Don't you think it wrong to fall out of love with your husband, into love with another man, and to take no more interest in your children than if they were a couple of wooden dolls made in Germany?"
"Caring enough makes everything right," she said, still wearily, as if the whole subject bored her.
"Caring enough!" exclaimed John. "Oh, caring enough makes everything right. But do you care enough—either of you? I may change my mind, but just now, as a man fighting for what little happiness there may be left for him in the world, this question of how much you care is the crux of the whole matter. If I thought that you cared enough I'd take my hat off to the exception which proves the rule that all illicit passions are wrong. If I thought that you cared enough I'd think that a great wonder had come to pass in the world, and I'd give you my blessing and tell you to go your ways."
Lucy rose and went appealingly to him. "John, dear," she said, "we do care enough."