Where the more facile and graceful Faunce would break or yield, Overton had exemplified those granite qualities of soul and body that belong by right to the leaders of men. He would always be that to her, Diane thought pensively as she walked more slowly, prolonging her return journey. He would always be a splendid figure at the horizon of her imagination.
If he had not loved her—and perhaps he had not, after all—she could think of him more openly, sure that Faunce would understand. For Faunce had loved him, too. It was that, she remembered with a thrill of relief; it was that which had drawn them together. She could still hear the touching tone in Arthur’s fine voice when he paid his tribute to Overton that first night at the dinner, which seemed now so long ago.
“The best friend man ever had!”
How it had touched her sore heart then; how it touched her now! How beautifully he had accepted the fact that she had cared for Overton first; how splendidly he had shown himself above the meanness of jealousy of the dead!
She was glad that she had told him. Some girls would have been silent when there had been no actual engagement; but she could not deceive a man who loved her as Arthur Faunce did. When she gave him her heart, she gave him the right to know that she had loved Overton first. Yet did he, could he, really understand how much—how very much—it had mattered to her? In the midst of her walk Diane stopped short.
“What am I doing?” she cried to herself. “What am I doing? I’ve just promised to marry one man, and—and I’m crying out here in broad daylight over another!”
“But you told him, you warned him!” replied an inner voice. “You have a right to go on feeling just the same as you did before.”
“But I’ve no right to marry Faunce if I love another man more!” she cried again, arguing with the unseen ego.
Then, in the rustle of the wind in the bare trees, and the crash of ice falling from their boughs, she seemed to hear an answer—a sublime voice that reassured her. Overton was dead. He was only a dim and glorious presence now. He had entered that sphere where they neither marry nor are given in marriage; how could it matter to him what she did?
She went on, quickening her steps, trying to reassure herself. She recalled Faunce, the warm certainty of his affection, the nearness of his presence. She told herself that she was happy, that she was right, that she had followed her heart.