"And is that so terrible?" Norma asked, touched, and smiling through tears.
"No, it is so wonderful," he answered, gravely, "that it blinds me. It blinds me to your youth, my dear, your inexperience—your faith in me! It makes me only remember that I need you—and want you—and that I believe I could make you the happiest woman in the world!"
The faint shadow of a frown crossed her forehead, and she slowly shook her head.
"Not divorce!" she said, lightly, but inflexibly. They had been over this ground before. "No, there's no use in thinking of that! Even if it were not for Aunt Alice, and Aunt Marianna, other things make it impossible. You see that, Chris? Yes, I know!"—she interrupted herself quickly, as Chris protested, "I know what plenty of good people, and the law, and society generally think. But of course it would mean that we could not live here for awhile, anyway! No—that's not thinkable!"
"No, that's not thinkable," he agreed, slowly; "I am bound hand and foot. It isn't only what Alice—as a wife—claims from me. But there are Acton and Leslie; there is hardly a month that my brother doesn't propose some plan that would utterly wreck their affairs if I didn't put my foot down. They're both absolute children in money matters; Judge Lee is getting old—there's no one to take my place. Your Aunt Marianna, too; I've always managed everything for her. No; I'm tied."
His voice fell. For awhile they sat silent, in the lingering, cool spring twilight, while the red glow faded slowly from the river, and from the opposite banks where houses and roofs showed between the bare trees.
"But what can we do, Norma? I've tried—I've tried a thousand times, to see the future, without you. But I simply can't go on living on those terms. There's nothing—nothing—nothing! I go to the piano, and before I touch a note, the utter blank futility of it comes over me and sickens me! It's the same in the office, and at the club; I seem to be only half alive. If it could be even five years ahead—or ten years ahead—I would wait. But it's never—never. No hope—nothing to live for! Life is simply over—only one doesn't die."
The girl had never heard quite this note of despair from him before, and her heart sank.
"You are young," he said, after a minute, and in a lighter tone, "and perhaps—some day——"
"No, don't believe that, Chris," Norma said, quietly. And with a gesture full of pain she leaned her elbow on the table, and pressed her hand across her eyes. "There will never be anybody else!" she said. "How could there be? You are the only person—like yourself!—that I have ever known!"