The Triflers Part 42

"How can that be?"

"Because she's the one who realizes the truth."

"But she's the one who went away."

"Because of that. It's a miserable story, Peter."

"You knew her intimately?"

"A great many years."

"I think Covington said he had known you a long time."

"Yes."

"Then, knowing her and knowing him, was n't there anything you could do?"

"I did what I could," she answered wearily.

"Perhaps that explains why he hurried back to her."

"He has n't gone to her. He'll never go back to her. She deserted him, and now--he's going to make it permanent."

"A divorce?"

"Yes, Peter," she answered, with a little s.h.i.+ver.

"You're taking it hard."

"I know all that he means to her," she choked.

"She loves him?"

"With all her heart and soul."

"And he does n't know it?"

"Why, he would n't believe it--if she told him. She can never let him know it. She'd deny it if he asked her. She loves him enough for that."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "There's a mistake there somewhere."

"The mistake came first," she ran on. "Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you these things, except that it is a relief to tell them to some one."

"Tell me all about it," he encouraged her. "I knew there was something on your mind."

"Peter," she said earnestly, "can you imagine a woman so selfish that she wanted to marry just to escape the responsibilities of marriage?"

"It is n't possible," he declared.

Her cheeks were a vivid scarlet. Had he been able to see them, she could not have gone on.

"A woman so selfish," she faltered ahead, "that she preferred a make-believe husband to a real husband, because--because so she thought she would be left free."

"Free for what?" he demanded.

"To live."

"When love and marriage and children are all there is to life?" he asked.

She caught her breath.

"You see, she did not know that then. She thought all those things called for the sacrifice of her freedom."

"What freedom?" he demanded again. "It's when we're alone that we're slaves--slaves to ourselves. A woman alone, a man alone, living to himself alone--what is there for him? He can only go around and around in a pitifully small circle--a circle that grows smaller and smaller with every year. Between twenty and thirty a man can exhaust all there is in life for himself alone. He has eaten and slept and traveled and played until his senses have become dull. Perhaps a woman lasts a little longer, but not much longer. Then they are locked away in themselves until they die."

"Peter!" she cried in terror.

"It's only as we live in others that we live forever," he ran on. "It is only by toiling and sacrificing and suffering and loving that we become immortal. It is so we acquire real freedom."

"Yes, Peter," she agreed, with a gasp.

"Could n't you make her understand that?"

"She does understand. That's the pity of it."

"And Covington?"

"It's in him to understand; only--she lost the right to make him understand. She--she debased herself. So she must sacrifice herself to get clean again. She must make even greater sacrifices than any she cowed away from. She must do this without any of the compensations that come to those who have been honest and unafraid."

"What of him?"

"He must never know. He'll go round and round his little circle, and she must watch him."

"It's terrible," he murmured. "It will be terrible for her to watch him do that. If you had told him how she felt--"

"G.o.d forbid!"

"Or if you had only told me, so that I could have told him--"

She seized Peter's arm.

"You would n't have dared!"

"I'd dare anything to save two people from such torment."

"You--you don't think he will worry?"

"I think he is worrying a great deal."