Rose had very little arrogance, but all women who have been loved must have some. Surely he who was so much her lover could not have left her so soon?
She remembered that when she had said to her mother, “But I could never leave Léon,” Mrs. Pinsent had made no direct response. Her mother had realized that that wasn’t the only question. How had she realized this? Had her father ever--? Rose buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. “Oh, poor mother!” she murmured, “poor mother!” She could not see herself as wholly poor yet.
And then she remembered Léon’s face as he passed her, his sad, ashamed face, and she knew now why he had left her; but that he did not want to leave her.
She sat up very straight and stopped crying when she realized this.
She thought it very strange, for she knew quite well that Madame Gérard didn’t love Léon, either. She loved her own husband, Rose had seen this; she knew it as if it were in the multiplication table; but she couldn’t think of Madame Gérard now, she wasn’t her business. Léon was her business. She must understand, why he had done this thing. It wasn’t any use being silly and just crying, then it might happen again, and it should never happen again; she wasn’t going to have Léon looking ashamed twice.
From the first what wrung her heart was that Léon would feel it so! He had meant to be such a help, he nearly had been, and if he hadn’t been wasn’t it because Rose had failed him? She hadn’t meant to fail him of course, she had meant just the opposite; but that was before she knew all about everything, and before you know how to mean, meaning isn’t going to be much of a help.
She had thought Léon was strong. He wasn’t strong, but in the rush of her passionate reasoning she carried this feather-weight of disadvantage into the fathomless sea of her love and left it safely there. No, he wasn’t strong--but he was Léon--he was hers.
It was she who should have realized his weakness. She remembered now that once or twice lately he had turned back from his excursions with Madame to suggest that Rose should join them, but she had refused in her foolish pride because she had wanted to prove to him how magnanimous she was. She shouldn’t have done that at all, she shouldn’t have had any pride--and it didn’t matter in the least whether she was magnanimous or not! She should have held him to her by whatever could have kept him there. Tears, if tears were necessary; pity, duty, pleading--anything and everything that would have helped him.
She had been thinking of what he would think of her--not of what he needed in her! She saw now it only mattered what he thought of her in so far as it helped her to save him. Her magnanimity hadn’t saved him. Something less beautiful but more practical might have saved him, her just being, for instance, a little more there.
But he hadn’t lied to her, she came back to that as if it was something on which her heart might rest. Ah! if he had done that she would have known that he no longer loved her!