"Gerry, you poor child!" she exclaimed with such sudden, warm sympathy and with such an utter lack of criticism or reproach that any human being would have been moved to gratitude and remorse.
Gerry stumbled forward. Poor Gerry, who had changed so completely in the past few weeks that even her delicate prettiness seemed to have vanished forever! She was so white and worn looking, so thin and unhappy.
"Then you forgive me?" she began.
Mrs. Burton took both her hands.
"We are not going to talk about forgiveness. You had your own life to live, Gerry, and it was natural that you should do the thing you supposed to be for your happiness without thinking of your gratitude or obligation to me. If it had been for your happiness I should not have expected you to think of me, although it would have been kinder of you. But of course, dear, when girls do reckless things, the reason older persons are grieved and angry is because of the consequences they are sure to bring upon themselves. Being young you cannot understand this! Yet it seems to me that you are having to pay rather more than other people. Do sit down, dear; the other girls have gone away for the day so we shall be entirely alone."
As if she were really too tired to stand, Gerry sank into the nearest chair.
"I am sorry; I have not been able to sleep since Felipe was arrested. I am told he keeps asking for me and I am not allowed to see him. He thinks he has done me a great injustice, but that is not true and besides I do not care."
Gerry spoke with entire self-forgetfulness.
"Mrs. Burton, I don't think you or perhaps anyone can understand, although I have tried to make Mr. Morris see. But Felipe and I have been perfectly miserable ever since we were married. Oh, it is not because we do not care for each other, because we do care very, very deeply! Only neither Felipe nor I seemed to realize the weakness and wrong of what we were doing until we were safely out of our own country and had time to face the truth. Then Felipe confessed to me he had been a coward. He seemed to think that no matter what happened in our future together, I must always think of him as a coward and compare him with other men who had done their duty. I don't know why he did not think of all this before. But Felipe has written me that he is almost glad he has been arrested. Anything which may happen to him will be better than having to live as a fugitive until the war is over. Besides, even afterwards, he could never look another American fellow in the face, remembering his own weakness! Can you understand how anyone could change a point of view so quickly, Mrs. Burton?" Gerry inquired wistfully. "It is hard even for me, and yet I realize that Felipe and I simply woke up from our selfish dream of happiness to realizing we had been traitors and cowards."
"I can understand almost any weakness and almost any strength in human beings, Gerry dear, after the years I have lived and the men and women I have known," Mrs. Burton answered, forgetting for the moment Gerry's youth. But the bitter waters of experience and regret having passed over Gerry, she was no longer young.