The other laughed. “Oh, it's perfectly easy if you really want to,” she said, “it all depends on what you want, you know.”
For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted from the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with every warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her. She pictured her announcement, Fräulein Müller's amazed questions.
“'But—but I do not understand! You are not well?'
“'Perfectly, thank you.'
“'But I am perfectly satisfied: I do not wish to change. You are not sick, then?'
“'Only of teaching, Fräulein.'
“'But the instructorship—I was going to recommend—do not be alarmed; you shall have it surely!'
“'You are very kind, but I have taught long enough.'
“'Then you do not find another position? Are you to be—'”
Always here her heart sank. Was she? What real basis had all this sweet, disturbing dream? To write so to a man after seven years! It was not decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she would never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for her then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as far from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between them. And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the only one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew that men forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a cloistered, academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' promise. This was another result of such lives as they led—such helpless, provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It had made her a fool.