"It is not what you say that counts. We don't love each other any more; that was over long ago; that's the whole trouble; that's why we quarrel; that's why you drink and I'm hateful to you—and it'll get worse and worse and more degrading if we keep on. Oh, I feel no better than a woman of the streets when I——"
"Georgia," Mrs. Talbot raised her eyes significantly, glancing at Al, to warn her daughter against letting her son know a truth.
"Oh, I have been thinking this over and over—for months," continued the wife, "and I kept putting it off. But now I'm glad I said it and it's done."
"The church admits of only one ground for this," said Mrs. Talbot desperately, fighting for respectability; "do you mean that Jim has——"
"I don't know——"
"No," Jim denied indignantly, "you can't accuse me of that anyway."
"And I don't care."
"You don't care?" That was a most astounding remark, clear outside his calculations. Why—wives always cared tremendously. Every man knew that.
"No, if need be I could forgive an act, but not a state of mind."
Mrs. Talbot found herself literally forced to take sides with Jim. This was an attack on all tradition, on everything that she had been taught. "Why, I never heard of such talk in my life."