“It was just that explanation––this––I wished to avoid. It’s hard for us both, and useless.”
“Useless!” The man quickly picked up the word. “Useless! I don’t like the suggestion of that word. It hints of death, and old age, and hateful things. It has no place with the living.”
He drew a paper from his pocket, slowly, and spread it on his knee.
“Pardon me for again recalling past history, Eleanor; but to use a word that is dead!... You must have forgotten––” The writing, a 164 dainty, feminine hand, was turned toward her, tauntingly, compellingly.
The man waited for some response; but Camilla Maurice was silent. That bit of paper, the shadow of a seemingly impossible past, made her, for the time, question her identity, almost doubt it.
Five years ago, almost to the day, high up in a city building, in a dainty little room, half office, half atelier, a man and a woman had copied an agreement, each for the other, and had sworn an oath ever to remain true to that solemn bond.... She had brought nothing to him, but herself; not even affection. He, on the other hand, had saved her from a life of drudgery by elevating her to a position where, free of the necessity of struggling for a bare existence, she might hope to consummate the fruition of at least a part of her dreams. On her part....
“Witnesseth: The said Eleanor Owen is at liberty to follow her own inclinations as she may see fit; she is to remain free of any and all responsibilities and restrictions such as customarily 165 attach to the supervision of a household, excepting as she may elect to exercise her wifely prerogatives; being absolutely free to pursue whatsoever occupation or devices she may desire or choose, the same as if she were yet a spinster....
“In Consideration of Which: The said Eleanor Owen agrees never so to comport herself that by word or conduct will she bring ridicule.... dishonor upon the name....”
Recollection of it all came to her with a rush; but the words ran together and swam in a maddening blur––the roar from the street below, dull with distance; the hum of the big building, with its faint concussions of closing doors; the air from the open window, not like the sweet prairie air of to-day, but heavy, smoky, typical breath of the town, yet pregnant with the indescribable throb of spring, impossible to efface or to disguise! The compelling intimacy and irrevocability of that memory overwhelmed her, now; a dark, evil flood that blotted out the sunshine of the present. 166
The paper rustled, as the man smoothed it flat with his hand.