We Three Part 24

And she turned to me. "You are all that counts. I'd give up my life for you, and I'd give up my children and everything. You know that."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'"]

There was a long silence. Then Schuyler, speaking very slowly, said: "You'd go away with him, and never see Jock and Hurry again, not be able to go to them when they were sick, not to be at little Hurry's wedding when she grows up and gets married. . . . For G.o.d's sake!"

"_Now_ do you realize that I'm in earnest?" she cried.

Schuyler turned quietly on his heel and left the room. After a while we heard his voice in the distance, mingling joyfully with the voices of Jock and Hurry.

Lucy's face, all tears now, was pressed to my breast.

"You are giving up too much for me, my darling," I said; "I'm not worth it."

"But if you went out of my life I'd die!"

"I won't go out of your life, Lucy. But there are lives and lives. We could meet and be together to gather strength for the times we had to be apart."

At that she had a renewal of crying, and cried for a long time.

"It isn't right for Jock and Hurry to run any risk of losing you," I said, "and love--Lucy--love with renunciation is a wonderful thing, and a strong thing."

"I'm not strong. I don't want to be strong. I just want to give and give and give."

"We could have our own life apart from everybody else--but not a hidden guilty life--a life to be proud of--a life in which you would strengthen me for my other life and I would strengthen you for yours."

She stopped crying all at once and freed herself from my arms. "Then you don't want me?"

"I want you."

She lifted her hands to my shoulders. "Suppose we find that we can't stand a life of love--with renunciation?"

"At least we would have tried to do what seemed to make for the happiness of the most people."

"And you think I ought to live on with John, as--as his wife?"

"No, I couldn't bear that--but as his friend, Lucy, as the mother of Jock and Hurry. Oh, no," I said; "I couldn't bear it, if--if you weren't faithful to me."

"And you would be faithful to me?"

"In thought and deed."

"And we'd just be wonderful friends?"

"Lovers, too, Lucy. We couldn't help that."

And I kissed her on the forehead. And at that moment I felt very n.o.ble, and that the way of life which I had proposed was a very fine way of life, and possible of being lived.

"Then," she said, "John mustn't know. He must never know. It will always be our secret. But then Schuyler knows."

"When I tell him what we mean to do, he won't tell."

And the first chance I had I told Schuyler. And finished with, "So don't tell John, will you?"

"I'll see how happy Lucy manages to make him, first," said Schuyler.

"But if you think he won't find out all by himself, you're mistaken.

It's a rotten business all around."

And he looked at me with a kind of comical amazement. "Think of Lucy carin' more for you than for Jock and Hurry!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you regale her from time to time with episodes from your past life? . . . Well, if I didn't think you'd both get tired of each other before long, I'd feel worse. One thing, though, if I promise you that I won't give you away to John, will you promise me for yourself and for Lucy that you won't take any serious step, without telling me first, and giving me a chance to try to dissuade you?"

"As there is to be no question of a serious step," I said, "I promise."

XXIII

Ours was to be one of the most beautiful and beneficial loves of history. Almost we fell in love with our new way of loving. It had, we felt, a dignity and a purpose lacking in other loves. To look each other in the eyes, and feel that in a moment of strength, spurred by pity for those who had no such love as ours to sustain them, we had renounced each other, was a state of serenity and peace.

It added to the beauty of our renunciation that it claimed no l.u.s.ter of publicity, but had been made in quiet privacy. No one, we thought, will ever know; yet it will have been strong and pure, so that the world cannot but be the better for it.

We delighted for a while in our supreme renunciation as children delight in a new toy. And even now I can look back upon that time and wish that there could have been a little more substance to the shadow.

It was a time of wonderful and sweet intimacy. We were to tell each other everything. There was delight in that. There was the delight of looking ahead and planning the meetings that should be ours in other places, until at last John himself came to realize that in our loving friends.h.i.+p was nothing unbeautiful, or unbeneficent, and meetings would happen when or where we pleased, the world silenced by the husband's approval.

So I did not take Harry Colemain's well-meant advice, and leave Aiken.

For a while it would suffice John to know that Lucy intended to stand by him and be the keeper of his house; to put his interests first, and to make up to him in dutifulness and economy for the love which she could not but reserve. Yes, indeed! Riding slowly through the spring woods, I made bold to preach a gospel of new life to her, and she listened very meekly, like a blessed angel, and she felt sure that from me she would derive the will and the strength. Mostly it was a gospel of economy that I preached and how best she might help her husband back upon his feet. And before his return from Palm Beach she had made a beginning. She bought a book to keep accounts in, and she got together all the bills she could lay hands on, and added them up to an appalling total (several, for it came different each time) and she stacked the bills in order of their pressingness, with the requests for payment from lawyers and collectors on top, and she felt an unparalleled glow of virtue and helpfulness.

And one day she took Jock and Hurry in the runabout (Cornelius Twombly behind) and drove to the station to welcome John home. How sweet the sight of those three faces must have seemed to him after absence!

Indeed they had seemed very sweet to me as I looked into them just before they drove stationward. I was not to show up for two or three days. That was one compromise on Harry Colemain's advice. It would show John that Lucy and I were not entirely engrossed in each other's society. It would give him time to turn around and see how he liked the fact that Lucy was going to stick to him, and in many ways be a better wife to him. It would give me an opportunity to see, and be seen by many people. It would, in short, be a beginning of knocking on the head and silencing most of the talk that there had been about Lucy and me.

When you have a secret you might as well do your best to keep it.

So I did not see John Fulton for three days after his return from Palm Beach, and then by accident.

He had stopped at my father's house to leave the rod and tackle-box which I had loaned him, and I, happening to be in the hall, opened the door myself, and went out to speak with him.

"Have a good time?" I asked.

The man looked so sick that I pitied him.

"Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the club? I'll drive you."

"Will you? Thanks. I'll just put these things in the hall."

We drove slowly toward the club.

"Glad to be back?"

"Very. I couldn't have stayed away from Lucy and the kids much longer, even if I'd been held."