And wouldn't it be better if we were cured? Far better. I had to admit that. We ought, indeed, to hope that we should be cured; to help with all our strength in the effecting of that cure. And conversely, Lucy ought to try to return to her affection for John and to her duty.
Suddenly I felt cold and shivery as before undergoing an operation.
Poor little Lucy! Even now she must be listening to John's ultimatum, as I had listened, but with this difference; she could not see the justice and the logic of his position. She would only see that she was being cruelly hurt, and thwarted, and disappointed; that she was being curbed and punished by forces too strong for her to cope with. And I pictured her, all reserve gone at last, a tortured child—just sobbing. It seemed to me that I must go to her or die. And indeed I went a little way toward their hotel. Then I thought, perhaps her sobs would move him to a change of heart. Perhaps he will weaken, and let her go. Upon the strength of this thought I returned to my own hotel, rearing a blissful edifice of immediate happiness.
I sat in the lobby in a position of reading, a newspaper before my face; but I did not read. I was listening for the boy who would page me to the telephone. Many names were called in the lobby, but it was two o'clock before I started at the sound of my own.
Fulton was at the other end of the telephone, not Lucy. He sounded very much upset and depressed: "Lucy would like to see you right away, if you can come round."
"Of course."
We said no more.
Her face was white and tear-stained. I had no sooner closed the door of their sitting-room behind me, than she flung herself upon my breast and burst into a storm of sobs. After a long time words began to mingle with the sobs.
"It will kill me. Why does he want me to die?… I've only got you.… I want to belong to you—to you."
I talked and I talked, and I soothed and I soothed, but she was sick with grief and pain and a kind of insane resentment, as if she had gone through a major operation without an anesthetic. It would have been horrible to see anybody suffer so. And she was the woman I loved! The strain was so great upon me that at last my powers of resistance snapped. I flung honor to the winds, and became strong with resolution. And now my words seemed to pierce her consciousness and to calm her.