"It would cost you hardly anything to live there. And we could—"
"Yes," she said. "I'd love that part of it. You know how I'd like to see you every minute. But there's plenty of time. I'll think about it, dear."
"That's just the point. There is so much time. A whole year and more before I can—and it would be just like you to half starve yourself and never say a word to me about it."
"O Paul!" she laughed, "you are so funny! And I love you for it. Well, then, listen. I have a little over twelve hundred dollars in the bank. Not much, is it, to show for all the years I've been working? But it will keep me from growing gaunt and hollow-eyed for lack of food, quite a little while. And if I really did need more there's a whole world full of money all around me, you know. So please don't worry. I promise to eat and eat. I promise never to stop eating as long as I live. Regularly, three times a day, every single day!"
"All right," he said. His cigar-end glowed red for a minute through the gathering dusk. She put her hand on his sleeve, and it moved beneath her fingers until its firm, warm grip closed over them. Palm against palm and fingers interlaced, they sat in silence. "It's going to be a long time," he said. After a long moment he added gruffly, "I suppose you've—begun the thing—seen a lawyer?"
"I'm going to, this week. I—hate to—somehow. It's so—"
"You poor dear! I wish to heaven you didn't have to go through it. But I suppose it won't be—there won't be any trouble. Tell me, Helen, honestly. You do want to do it? You aren't keeping—anything from me?"
"No. I do want to. But there's something I've got to tell you. He's come back." He was instantly so still that his immobility was more startling than a cry. At the faint relaxing of his hand, her own fled, and clenched on the arm of her chair. Quietly, in a voice that was stiff from being held steady, she told him something of her interview with Bert. "I thought you ought to know. I didn't want you to hear it from some one else."
"I'm glad you told me. But—don't let's ever speak of him again." His gesture of repugnance flung the cigar in a glowing arc over the porch railing, and it lay a red coal in the grass.
"I don't want to." She rose to face him, putting her hands on his shoulders. "But, Paul, I want you to understand. He never was anything to me, really. Nothing real, I mean. It was just because I was a foolish girl and lonely and tired of working—and I didn't understand. We never were really married." She stumbled among inadequate words, trying to make him feel what she felt. "There wasn't any reality between us, any real love, nothing solid to build a marriage on. And I think there is between you and me."