"How silly!" echoed Lucy, and we stood staring at each other rather vapidly, finding nothing to say.
After a while I asked if John had said any more on the subject. "Did he embroider the theme at all?" I asked.
Lucy took a photograph out of the trunk tray and began to unwrap it. "Yes," she said. "He did. He even held forth. He said that when a woman no longer cared for her husband, it was dangerous for her to see much of another man. He realized, he said, that ours was an exceptional case, but that soon people would guess about him and me, and that then they'd begin to talk about you and me. And he hates anything conspicuous, and so forth, and so forth."
"What did you say?"
She smiled up at me, but not very joyously. "I said, 'I'm not going to be rude to one of the best friends I've got, just for fun. If you forbid me to see him, why I suppose I'll obey you, but I'd have to explain to him, wouldn't I? I'd have to say, "John considers our friendship dangerous, so we're not to see each other any more!"' And of course he said that that was out of the question, and I agreed with him."
"Still you've said it."
And we smiled at each other.
"He didn't give me a good character," said Lucy dolefully. "He said I never think of yesterday or tomorrow, but only of the moment. He said I neglect the children, and Oh, I'd like to end it all! It's an impossible situation. I'd give my life gladly to feel about him the way I used to, but I can't—I can't ever."
She looked very tragic.
"Oh," she went on vehemently, "it's terrible. I'm all cold and dumb. Every power of affection that I had has gone out like a candle. I do neglect the children! It's because I can't look them in the face. I've failed him, and I've failed them, and I ought to tie a stone round my neck and jump into the nearest millpond."