"Do you think she'd care where she was? Kelly, you're ridiculous!"
"Do you believe that any woman could stand that for the rest of her life, Valerie?"
She smiled, head lowered, fondling the cat who had gone ecstatically to sleep.
She said, still smiling: "If a girl is loved she endures some things; if she loves she endures more. But to a girl who is loved, and who loves, nothing else matters … And it would be that way with Rita"—she lifted her eyes—"as it is with me."
He was standing beside her now; she made room on the side of the bed for him with a little gesture of invitation:
"People who die for each other are less admirable than people who live for each other. The latter requires the higher type of courage … If I go out of your life I am like a dead person to you—a little worse in fact. Besides, I've shown the white feather and run away. That's a cowardly solution of a problem, isn't it?"
"Am I a coward if I decide to stand back and give you a chance?"
"You haven't decided to do it," she said cheerfully, lifting the somnolent cat and hugging it.
"I'm afraid I have, dear."
"Why?"