“You never tried. If I had once thought of you as a possible lover ... who knows? At least, I have learned what a large part a woman’s imagination plays in the game of love, but the woman is poor indeed who finds nothing for her imagination to feed on after marriage.... Why,” she exclaimed in wonderment, “I can’t imagine life without you. As I look back I see that our friendship has been a thread in my life for years, and I really believe the whole fabric would fall to pieces without it. Unconsciously I have always turned to you, always applied your standards to things.”
“Claudia!”
“Yes.... I think you saved me from a terrible mistake.... You said I wasn’t to speak of it. But I must now, just this once, then it goes into the realm of things utterly forgotten. You remember the night you found me on the stairs.... I expect you guess somewhere near the truth. Don’t look like that. It was as much my fault as his. I was ready to snatch at anything to fill my life. I thought I could—but I couldn’t.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference to me,” he said steadily. “I should have understood the reasons that drove you to it.”
She looked at him, and marvelled that what he said was true.
“But I’m glad,” she whispered, “that I—couldn’t. It would have made a difference to me. I think we should not have been standing here now. It wouldn’t have lasted, I should have gone on plunging.... Let me tell you something. That night your card was on the mantelpiece in the studio. I picked it up, and from that moment my mood changed. Somehow you seemed in the room with us.... Then I hated the way he had painted me. I knew you wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t like you to see it exhibited. I didn’t want to be that woman—because of you. I see it now. I didn’t understand why my mood changed at the time. Now it’s clear to me, and I can only marvel that I have been blind so long.” The mingled tenderness and strength of her face were very beautiful, as she added, “That temptation can never happen again. I shan’t feel so restless any more.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Claudia, it’s like an impossibly sweet dream that you should be saying these things to me. I know what you have meant to me for years; but that I can mean anything to you! Is it all quite real? You are sure it doesn’t come from your generous heart, just to comfort me, now you have found out my secret?”
“It’s real,” she smiled, standing in front of him, and putting a piece of the honeysuckle in his buttonhole. “It’s the only thing that is real in my life. Fay and I have both been trying to fight, each in our own way—she’s helped me too with her pluck and courage, but now this makes the fight much easier. Now I shall go on almost happily, because I’ve got my wish, the greatest wish in the world.”
“And that is——?”