She did not fully understand his feeling about it, which was that with the soiled experience of her marriage another ceremony with him would be a mere legal farce. To the pure idealism of his nature it seemed cleaner, nobler for them to take this step without any attempt to regularize it in the eyes of Society. To him she was justified in doing what she had done, in leaving her husband for him, and that would have to be enough for them both. He despised half measures, compromises. He was ready to cast all into his defiance of law. Meanwhile she pondered the matter with lowered eyes and presently she asked:—
"How long would it take to get a divorce?"
"If he fought it, a year perhaps, or longer."
"And I should have to stay here in the city?"
"Or go somewhere else to get a residence."
"And we—" she hesitated to complete the thought.
He drew her to him and kissed her.
"I think we shall be enough for each other," he said.
"I will do whatever you wish," she murmured, thus softly putting on his shoulders the burden of the step.
He was the man, the strong protector that had come to her in her distress, to whom she fled as naturally as a hunted animal flies to a hole, as a crippled bird to the deep underbrush. Her beauty, her sex, herself, had somehow attracted to her this male arm, and the right to take it never occurred to her. He loved her, of course, and she would make him love her more, and all would be well. If he had been penniless, unable to give her the full protection that she needed, then they would have been obliged to consider this step more carefully, and doubts might have forced themselves upon her. But as it was she clung to him, trusting to the power of her sex to hold him constant, to shield her….