“Zen!” he exclaimed. “The mystery of life is too much for me. Surely there must be an answer somewhere! Surely the puzzle has a system to it—a key which may some day be found! Or can it be just chaos—just blind, driveling, senseless chaos? In our own lives, why should we be stranded, helpless, wrecked, with the happiness which might have been ours hung just beyond our reach? Is there no answer to this?”
“I suppose we disobeyed the law, back in those old days. We heard it clearly enough, and we disobeyed. I allowed myself to be guided by motives which were not the highest; you seemed to lack the enterprise which would have won you its own reward. And as you have said, those who violate the law must suffer for it. I have suffered.”
She drew up her chin; he could see the firm muscles set beneath the pink bloom of her flesh.... He had not thought of Zen suffering; all his thought of her had been very grateful to his vanity, but he had not thought of her suffering. He extended his hands and took hers within them.
“I have sometimes wondered,” he said, “why there is no second chance; why one cannot wipe the slate clear of everything that has been and start anew. What a world this might be!”
“Would it be any better? Or would we go on making our mistakes over again? That seems to be the only way we learn.”
“But a second chance; the idea seems so fair, so plausible. Suppose you are shooting on the ranges, for instance; you are allowed a shot or two to find your nerve, to get your distance, to settle yourself to the business in hand. But in this business of life you fire, and if some distraction, some momentary influence or folly sends your aim wild, the shot is gone and you are left with all the years that follow to think about it. You can do nothing but think about it—the most profitless of all occupations.”
“For you there is a second chance,” she reminded him. “You must have thought of that.”
“No—no second chance.”
She drew herself up slightly and away from him. “I have been very frank with you, Dennison,” she said. “Suppose you try being frank with me?”
In her eyes was still the fire of Zen of the Y.D., a woman unconquered and unconquerable. She gave the impression that she accepted the buffetings of life, but no one forced them upon her. She had erred; she would suffer. That was fair; she accepted that. But as Grant gazed on her face, tilted still in some of its old-time recklessness and defiance, he knew that the day would come when she would say that her cup was full, and, throwing it to the winds, would start life over, if there can be such a thing as starting life over. And something in her manner told him that day was very, very near.