Then he told her, one night, what he had done.
For her, it was very much like a pitcher of cold water poured on one who is half asleep. With a gasp she was roused from her rationalized dreams. The most terrible aspect of it was that the deed was already done. It was irretrievable. She had instigated it. She had allowed the whole affair to drift to this conclusion. She could articulate nothing, but held closely to Roger, sobbing—torn by the conflicting passions within her. Never before had she actually seen God face to face. But now He came to her, as a terrible, revengeful angel, out from the past; while Roger, who sat there, seemed to represent the other extreme of her being—her mortal love. Call it casual love—you Christian hypocrites; call it anything you will; it was nevertheless present, in the person of this man, and its power over her was irresistible. It seemed to her that her nature would break in two. Especially after she had sent Roger away, with her promise to give him an answer on the morrow—especially then, alone in her room, she experienced a terrible feeling of being cut in half. The God of her ancestors was simply merciless. “Why—why? What have I done?” she cried. The answer was that she had flirted; she had forgotten her principles—one moment—one fleeting moment; she had rationalized; she had debased her own self-respect. Yet she was in love, now, and he was in love with her. There was only one course to be taken.
Perhaps two lovers never embraced more passionately than these two when Roger learned the next day what her decision had been. He understood, almost as well as she, the tremendous storm within her. He understood that he alone could create a haven where the storm might not enter, and where this delicate, fitful ship could lie happily at anchor.
They were married quite peacefully in an old New England church, and she went with him to live in New York.
Winter passed. Spring came. Georgiana returned. It is only after some such calm as this that one can look back and contemplate the true causes of a storm. Helen found, after she had lived intimately with Roger for a short time, that there were a great many things yet to be learned about each other’s characters. Not only this. There were a great many things to be forgiven in each other’s characters—more things, perhaps, than the average man and wife can forgive. In the first place, she was vivacious; he was stolid. She had a quick mind, essentially French; his mind was slow and Anglo-Saxon. She was loath to recognize these things; she tried to rationalize them. But they were there continually to remind her that she had a very difficult situation to manage, if she were to maintain her supremacy. Of course she loved Roger. But it was not the same as in the days when she had flirted with him.
Georgiana had come back—that was the difficulty. One day she heard Roger return from work, and since he did not go directly to greet her as usual, she started toward the parlor to greet him. Yet at the door she paused, for she saw him in front of the window, bending over something. Helen slipped behind the curtain and peered through the crack. He held a picture in his hand; and as he went over to the light to look at it more intensely, she saw who it was.
“God, but she was a beautiful girl!” said her husband, as he gazed for a long time into those deep eyes.
Presently he turned, went over to a drawer in the bottom of the book-case, and started to put the picture away. Helen retired quickly from the curtain. What troubled her most of all was Roger’s queer psychology, which concealed these things. Then, too, there was the distasteful, though emotional, necessity of obtaining the picture, and destroying it, without discovery.
RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.