“Of course. They all do.”
“Do you think so?” She considered this. “You said something a moment ago that perhaps explains—about the natural boundary of human freedom.... Listen! You knew Betty Deane, the girl that roomed with me? Well, less than a year ago, after letting herself go some all the year—it's fair enough to say that, to you; she didn't cover her tracks—she suddenly ran off and married a manufacturer up in her home town. I'm sure there wasn't any love in it. I know it, from things she said and did. All the while he was after her she was having her good times here. I suppose she had reached the boundary. She married in a panic. She was having a little affair with your friend—what's his name?”
“Hy Lowe?”
The Worm smiled faintly. The incorrigible Hy had within the week set up a fresh attachment. This time it was a new girl in the Village—one Hilda Hansen, from Wisconsin, who designed wall-paper part of the time.
But he realized that Sue, with a deeper flush now and a look in her eyes that he did not like to see there, was speaking.
“When I found out what Betty had done I said some savage things, Henry. Called her a coward. Oh, I was very superior—very sure of myself. And here's the grotesque irony of it.” Her voice was unsteady. “Here's what one little unexpected contact with reality can do to the sort of scornful independent mind I had. Twenty-four hours—less than that—after Betty went I found myself soberly considering doing the same thing.”
“Marrying?” The Worm's voice was suddenly low and a thought husky.
She nodded.
“A man you don't love?”
“I've had moments of thinking I loved him, hours of wondering how I could, possibly.”