She went to the piano and shifted the music. There were dozens of songs about roses. She dropped to the bench and began to play and croon Edward Carpenter's luscious music to Waller's old poem, “Go, Lovely Rose.”
Jim began to talk almost at once. Charity went on singing, smiling a little at the familiar experience of being asked to sing only to be talked over. Jim grew garrulous as he read across her shoulder with characteristic impoliteness.
“Tell her that wastes her time and me,” he quoted; then he groaned: “That's you and me, Charity Coe. But you're wasting yourself most of all.”
He bent closer to peek at the name of the author. “Who's this feller Waller, who knows so much?”
“Hush and listen,” she said, and hummed the song through. It made a new and deep impression on her in that humor. She felt that she had wasted the rosiness of her own life. Girlhood was gone; youth was gone; carefreedom was gone. Like petals they had fallen from the core of her soul. The words of the lyric stabbed her:
Then die that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee.
How small a part of time they share
That are so sweet and fair.
Her fingers slipped from the keys and, as it were, died in her lap. Jim Dyckman understood a woman for once, and in a gush of pity for her and of resentment for her disprized preciousness caught at her to embrace her. Her hands came to life. The wifely instinct leaped to the fore. She struck and wrenched and drove him off. She was panting with wrath.
“What a rotten thing to do! Go away and don't come near me again. I'm ashamed of you.”
“Me, too,” he snarled.