She rose and walked to the end of the porch. Porter followed her, and they stood looking down into the garden. It was in a riot of summer bloom—and the fragrance rushed up to them.
The garden! And herself a flower! It was such things that Roger Poole could say, and which Porter could never say. And he could not say them because he could not think them. The things that Porter thought were commonplace, the things which Roger thought were wonderful. If she married Porter Bigelow, she would walk always with her feet firmly on the ground. If she married Roger Poole they would fly in the upper air together.
"Mary," Porter was insisting, "dear girl."
She held up her hand. "I won't listen," she said, almost passionately; "don't imagine things about me, Porter. I have my work—and my freedom—I won't give them up for anybody."
If she said the words with something less than her former confidence he was not aware of it. How could he know that she was making a last desperate stand?
When at last she sent him away, he went with an air of depression which touched her.
"I've risked being thought a cad," he said, "but I had to do it."
"I know. I don't blame you, dear boy."
She gave him her hand upon it, and he went away, and she was left alone in the moonlight.
And when the last echo of his purring car had died away into silence she went down and sat in the garden on the bench beside the hundred-leaved bush. Aunt Isabelle's light was still burning, and presently she would go up and say "Good-night," but for the moment she must be alone. Alone to face the doubts which were facing her. Suppose, oh, suppose, that the things which Roger had told her about his marriage had been distorted to make his story sound plausible? Suppose the little wife had suffered, had been driven from him by coldness, by cruelty? One never knew the real inner histories of such domestic tragedies. There was Leila, for example, who knew nothing of Barry's faults, and Barry had not told her. Might not other men have faults which they dared not tell? The world was full of just such tragedies.