“I don't get you. Look here now——”
She lay awake, while he rumbled with sleep
“I must go on. My 'crank ideas;' he calls them. I thought that adoring him, watching him operate, would be enough. It isn't. Not after the first thrill.
“I don't want to hurt him. But I must go on.
“It isn't enough, to stand by while he fills an automobile radiator and chucks me bits of information.
“If I stood by and admired him long enough, I would be content. I would become a 'nice little woman.' The Village Virus. Already——I'm not reading anything. I haven't touched the piano for a week. I'm letting the days drown in worship of 'a good deal, ten plunks more per acre.' I won't! I won't succumb!
“How? I've failed at everything: the Thanatopsis, parties, pioneers, city hall, Guy and Vida. But——It doesn't MATTER! I'm not trying to 'reform the town' now. I'm not trying to organize Browning Clubs, and sit in clean white kids yearning up at lecturers with ribbony eyeglasses. I am trying to save my soul.
“Will Kennicott, asleep there, trusting me, thinking he holds me. And I'm leaving him. All of me left him when he laughed at me. It wasn't enough for him that I admired him; I must change myself and grow like him. He takes advantage. No more. It's finished. I will go on.”
IV
Her violin lay on top of the upright piano. She picked it up. Since she had last touched it the dried strings had snapped, and upon it lay a gold and crimson cigar-band.