“My dear,” he answered, “if I knew that a divorce was necessary to your happiness, I would take upon myself whatever disgrace was necessary.”
Corydon sat gazing at him. “Is it so easy to give me up?” she asked.
“It wasn’t easy at all, my dear,” he answered. “It was a fight that I fought out.”
“But you decided that you could do it!” she exclaimed; and that, he found, was the aspect of the matter that stayed with her in the end. It seemed a poor sort of compliment he had paid her; and how could he make real to her the pangs the decision had cost him? He expected her to take that for granted—in all these years, had he not been able to convince her of his love?
It was the old story between them, he reflected; he was always being called upon to express his feelings, and always reluctant to attempt it. Just now she wanted him to enter upon an eloquent exposition of how he had suffered and hesitated before he mailed the letter; and she would hang upon his words, and drink them in greedily—and of course, the more convincing he made them, the more she would love him.
She could never leave him, she insisted—the idea of giving him up was madness. She had not meant any such thing by falling in love with Mr. Harding. Why must he be so elemental, so brutally direct? He was like some clumsy animal, blundering about in the garden where she kept her sentimental plants. He frightened her, as he had frightened Mr. Harding. She stood appalled at this thing which he had done; the truth being that his action had sprung from a certain deep conviction in him, which he never found courage to utter to her.
Section 15. Thyrsis pledged his word that he would write no more to Mr. Harding; and so they settled down to wait for a reply. But a couple more days passed, and still there came nothing.
Corydon was restless and impatient. “What can he be doing?” she exclaimed. Finally it chanced that Thyrsis had to go to Bellevue upon some errand; and so the two drove into town together, and came upon the solution of the mystery.
On the street they met Mr. Jennings, the high-school principal.
“Good-morning,” said he. “A fine day.” And then, “Have you heard the news about Harding?”