“Perhaps I am. What do you want me to do? Sit round and cry all day? When I’ve cried until I can’t cry any more, then—then I must do something else.”
“Are you sorry for me?” he persisted.
“No, I’m not. If I were big and free like you, I wouldn’t let anything make me unhappy. As old Napoleon Brunot said at the fair, I wouldn’t go lovering after no woman. I’d take the first train and go off and have all the fun there is.”
“I tried that, but it didn’t do any good. Everything reminded me. The nicer the place was, the more I wanted you.” They had come to the stile and Emil pointed to it persuasively. “Sit down a moment, I want to ask you something.” Marie sat down on the top step and Emil drew nearer. “Would you tell me something that’s none of my business if you thought it would help me out? Well, then, tell me, please tell me, why you ran away with Frank Shabata!”
Marie drew back. “Because I was in love with him,” she said firmly.
“Really?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, indeed. Very much in love with him. I think I was the one who suggested our running away. From the first it was more my fault than his.”
Emil turned away his face.
“And now,” Marie went on, “I’ve got to remember that. Frank is just the same now as he was then, only then I would see him as I wanted him to be. I would have my own way. And now I pay for it.”
“You don’t do all the paying.”