But Mrs. Tolliver’s expression of bewilderment failed to dissolve before this disjointed explanation. “No,” she said, “I don’t understand.... I should think you would have wanted a home and children and a successful husband. He’s been elected senator, you know, and they talk of making him president.”
Lily’s red lip curved in a furtive, secret, smile. “And what’s that to me?” she asked. “They can make him what they like. A successful husband isn’t always the best. I could see what they would make him. That’s why I couldn’t face being his wife. I wasn’t a girl when it happened. I was twenty-four and I knew a great many things. I wasn’t a poor innocent seduced creature. But it wasn’t so much that I thought it out. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t marry him. Something inside me wouldn’t let me. A part of me was wise. You see, only half of me loved him ... my body, shall we say, desired him. That is not enough for a lifetime. The body changes.” For a second she cast down her eyes as if in shame and Mrs. Tolliver, who never before had heard such talk, looked away, out of the tall window across the snow covered park.
“Besides,” Lily continued, after a little silence, “I have a home and I have a child. Both of them are perfect. I am a very happy woman, Cousin Hattie ... much happier than if I had married him. I know that from what he taught me ... in that one hour.”
Mrs. Tolliver regarded her now with a curious, prying, look. Plainly it was a miracle she had found in a woman who had sinned and still was happy. “But you have no husband,” she said presently, with the air of presenting a final argument.
“No,” replied Lily, “I have no husband.”
“But that must mean something.”
“Yes, I suppose it does mean something.”
And then the approach of the mulatto woman put an end to the talk for the time being. When she had disappeared once more, it was Mrs. Tolliver who spoke. “You know,” she said, “I sometimes think Irene would be better off if such a thing had happened to her. It isn’t natural, the way she carries on. It’s morbid. I’ve told her so often enough.”
“But it couldn’t have happened to Irene. She will never marry. You see Irene’s afraid of men ... in that way. Such a thing I’m sure would drive her mad.” And Lily bowed her lovely head for a moment. “We must be good to Irene. She can’t help being as she is. You see she believes all love is a kind of sin. Love, I mean, of the sort you and I have known.”
At this speech Mrs. Tolliver grew suddenly tense. Her large, honest face became scarlet with indignation. “But it isn’t the same,” she protested. “What I knew and what you knew. They’re very different things. My love was consecrated.”