The Triflers Part 47

"Yes."

She spoke almost mechanically.

"I--I should have guessed it before. Had I been able to see, I should have known."

"That is why I did n't wish you to see me--so soon," Marjory said.

"Covington!" he repeated. "But what of the other woman?"

She took a long breath.

"I--I'm the other woman," she answered.

"Marjory!" he cried. "Not she you told me of?"

"Yes."

"His wife!"

"No--not that. Merely Mrs. Covington."

"I don't understand. You don't mean you're not his wife!" He checked himself abruptly.

"We were married in Paris," she hastened to explain. "But--but we agreed the marriage was to be only a form. He was to come down here with me as a _compagnon de voyage_. He wished only to give me the protection of his name, and that--that was all I wished. It was not until I met you, Peter, that I realized what I had done."

"It was not until then you realized that you really loved him?"

"Not until then," she moaned.

"But, knowing that, you allowed me to talk as I did; to hope--"

"Peter--dear Peter!" she broke in. "It was not then. It was only after I knew he had gone out of my life forever that I allowed that. You see, he has gone. He has gone to England, and from there he is going home.

You know what he is going for. He is never coming back. So it is as if he died, isn't it? I allowed you to talk because I knew you were telling the truth. And I did not promise much. When you asked me never to go from you, all I said was that I 'd try. You remember that? And I have tried, and I was going to keep on trying--ever so hard. I had ruined my own life and his life, and--and I did n't want to hurt you any more. I wanted to do what I could to undo some of the harm I'd already done. I thought that perhaps if we went on like this long enough, I might forget a little of the past and look forward only to the future. Some day I meant to tell you. You know that, Peter. You know I would n't be dishonest with you." She was talking hysterically, anxious only to relieve the tenseness of his lips. She was not sure that he heard her at all. He was looking at her, but with curious detachment, as if he were at a play.

"Peter--say something!" she begged.

"It's extraordinary that I should ever have dared hope you were for me,"

he said.

"You mean you--you don't want me, Peter?"

"Want you?" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "I'd go through h.e.l.l to get you. I'd stay mole-blind the rest of my life to get you! Want you?"

He stepped toward her with his hands outstretched as if to seize her. In spite of herself, she shrank away.

"You see," he ran on. "What difference does it make if I want you? You belong to another. You belong to Covington. You have n't anything to do with yourself any more. You have n't yourself to give. You're his."

With her hand above her eyes as if to ward off his blows, she gasped:--

"You must n't say such things, Peter."

"I'm only telling the truth, and there's no harm in that. I 'm telling you what you have n't dared tell yourself."

"Things I mustn't tell myself!" she cried. "Things I must n't hear."

"What I don't understand," he said, "is why Covington did n't tell you all this himself. He must have known."

"He knew nothing," she broke in. "I was a mere incident in his life. We met in Paris quite by accident when he happened to have an idle week. He was alone and I was alone, and he saved me from a disagreeable situation.

Then, because he still had nothing in particular to do and I had nothing in particular to do, he suggested this further arrangement. We were each considering nothing but our own comfort. We wanted nothing more. It was to escape just such complications as this--to escape responsibility, as I told you--that we--we married. He was only a boy, Peter, and knew no better. But I was a woman, and should have known. And I came to know!

That was my punishment."

"He came to know, too," said Peter.

"He might have come to know," she corrected breathlessly. "There were moments when I dared think so. If I had kept myself true--oh, Peter, these are terrible things to say!"

She buried her face in her hands again--a picture of total and abject misery. Her frame shook with sobs that she was fighting hard to suppress.

Peter placed his hand gently upon her shoulder.

"There, little woman," he tried to comfort. "Cry a minute. It will do you good."

"I have n't even the right to cry," she sobbed.

"You _must_ cry," he said. "You have n't let yourself go enough. That's been the whole trouble."

He was silent a moment, patting her back, with his eyes leveled out of the window as if trying to look beyond the horizon, beyond that to the secret places of eternity.

"You have n't let yourself go enough," he repeated, almost like a seer.

"You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's because we've been selfish--all three of us. We've each thought of ourself alone--of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's deadly. It warps the vision. It--it makes people stone-blind.

"I understand now. When you went away from me, it was myself alone I considered. I was hurt and worried, and made a martyr of myself. If I had thought more of you, all would have been well. This time I think I--I have thought a little more of you. It was to get at you and not myself that I wanted to see again. So I saw again. I let go of myself and reached out for you. So now--why, everything is quite clear."

She raised her head.

"Clear, Peter?"

"Quite clear. I'm to go back to my work, and to use my eyes less and my head and heart more. I 'm to deal less with statutes and more with people. Instead of quoting precedents, perhaps I 'm going to try to establish precedents. There's work enough to be done, G.o.d knows, of a sort that is born of just such a year as this I 've lived through. I must let go of myself and let myself go. I must think less of my own ambitions and more of the ambitions of others. So I shall live in others. Perhaps I may even be able to live a little through you two."

"Peter!" she cried.

"For Covington must come back to you as fast as ever he can."

"No! No! No!"

"You don't understand how much he loves his wife."

"Please!"

"And, he, poor devil, does n't understand how much his wife loves him."