"Now just let me understand it," she began in that faintly mocking way, though her voice was shaking. "You propose that I do something to make the—the servant problem easier for your sister. Is that it? I am to do something, you haven't yet said what, to facilitate the domestic arrangements of the woman who is living with my husband. That's it, isn't it?" she asked with seeming concern.
He reddened, but her scoffing seemed to give him courage, as if he had something not to be scoffed at and could produce it. "It can be made to sound ridiculous, can't it?" he concurred. "But—" he broke off and his eyes went very serious. "You never knew Ruth very well, did you, Mrs. Williams?" he asked quietly.
The flush spread over her face. "We were not intimate friends," was her dry answer, but in that voice not steady.
He again colored, but that steady light was not driven from his eyes. "Ruth's had a terrible time, Mrs. Williams," he said in a quiet voice of strong feeling. "And if you had known her very well—knew just what it is Ruth is like—it seems to me you would have to feel sorry for her."
She seemed about to speak again in that mocking way, but looking at his face—the fine seriousness, the tender concern—she kept silence.
"And just what is it you propose that I do?" she asked after a moment, as if trying to appear faintly amused.
Very seriously he looked up at her. "It would help—even at this late day—if you would get a divorce."
She gasped; whether she had been prepared for it or not she was manifestly unprepared for the simple way he said it. For a moment she stared at him. Then she laughed. "You are a most amazing young man!" she said quiveringly.
As he did not speak, but only looked at her in that simple direct way, she went on, with rising feeling, "You come here, to me, into my house, proposing that—in order to make things easier for your sister in living with my husband—I get a divorce!"
He did not flinch. "It might do more than make things easier for my sister," he said quietly.