Eileen went on, “I just wondered had she told you. But I thought perhaps not.... I like her, Eddy. She was nice to me. I don’t know why, because I supposed—but never mind. What she came for was to tell me some things. Things I think I ought to have guessed for myself. I think I’ve been very stupid and very selfish, and I complaining to you about my troubles all this long while, and never thinking how it might be doing you harm. I ought to have known why Molly broke your engagement.”
“There were a number of reasons,” said Eddy. “She thought we didn’t agree about things and couldn’t pull together.”
Eileen shook her head. “She may have. But I think there was only one reason that mattered very much. She didn’t approve of me, and didn’t like it that you were my friend. And she was surely right. A man shouldn’t have friends his wife can’t be friends with too; it spoils it all. And of course she knew she couldn’t be friends with me; she thinks me bad. Molly would find it impossible even if it wasn’t wrong, to be friends with a bad person. So of course she had the engagement ended; there was no other way.... And you never told me it was that.... You should have told me, you foolish boy. Instead, you went on seeing me and being good to me, and letting me talk about my own things, and—and being just the one comfort I had, (for you have been that; it’s the way you understand things, I suppose)—and I all the time spoiling your life. When Mrs. Crawford told me how it was I was angry with you. You had a right to have told me. And now I’ve come to tell you something. You’re to go to Molly and mend what’s broken, and tell her you and I aren’t going to be friends any more. That will be the plain truth. We are not. Not friends to matter, I mean. We won’t be seeing each other alone and meeting the way we’ve been doing. If we meet it will be by chance, and with other people; that won’t hurt.”
Eddy, red-faced and indignant, said weakly, “It will hurt. It will hurt me. Haven’t I lost enough friends, then, that I must lose you, too?”
A queer little smile touched her lips.
“You have not. Not enough friends yet. Eddy, what’s the best thing of all in this world of good things? Don’t you and I both know it? Isn’t it love, no less? And isn’t love good enough to pay a price for? And if the price must be paid in coin you value—in friendship, and in some other good things—still, isn’t it worth it? Ah, you know, and I know, that it is!”
The firelight, flickering across her white face, lit it swiftly to passion. She, who had paid so heavy a price herself, was saying what she knew.
“So you’ll pay it, Eddy. You’ll pay it. You’ll have to pay more than you know, before you’ve done with love. I wonder will you have to pay your very soul away? Many people have to do that; pay away their own inmost selves, the things in them they care for most, their secret dreams. ‘I have laid my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.’... It’s like that so often; and then she—or he—doesn’t always tread softly; they may tread heavily, the way the dreams break and die. Still, it’s worth it....”
She fell into silence, brooding with bent head and locked hands. Then she roused herself, and said cheerfully, “You may say just what you like, Eddy, but I’m not going to spoil your life any more. That’s gone on too long already. If it was only by way of saying thank you, I would stop it now. For you’ve been a lot of use to me, you know. I don’t think I could easily tell you how much. I’m not going to try; only I am going to do what I can to help you patch up your affairs that you’ve muddled so. So you go to Molly directly you get home, and make her marry you. And you’ll pay the price she asks, and you’ll go on, both of you, paying it and paying it, more and more of it, as long as you both live.”
“She won’t have me,” said Eddy. “No one would have me, I should think. Why should they? I’m nothing. Everyone else is something; but I’m nothing. I can do nothing, and be nothing. I am a mere muddle. Why should Molly, who is straight and simple and direct, marry a muddle?”