The Letter of the Contract Part 20

"What we feel is that--that we love each other, isn't it?--that we love each other as much as we did years ago--more!--more! Isn't that it?"

She nodded. "Yes, more--oh, much more! And yet--"

"Yes?" he said, eagerly. "Yes? And what, then?"

"And yet--oh, Chip, I feel something else!" She leaned still further toward him, as if to annihilate the slight distance between them. "Don't you?"

"Something else--how?"

"Something else--higher--as if our loving each other wasn't the thing of most importance. I thought it was. All these years--I mean latterly--I've thought it was. When we met in England I was sure it was.

Since I've been back with him I've felt that I would have died gladly just to have one more day with you, like those at Maidenhead and Tunbridge Wells. But now--oh, Chip, I don't know _what_ to say!"

"Is it because he's been so generous?"

She shook her head. "Not altogether. No; I don't think it's that at all.

He's more than generous; he's tender. You can't think how tender he is--and always has been--with me and with the children. That's why I married him--why I thought I could find a sort of rest with him. You see that, don't you?--without judging me too harshly. He's that kind. I'm used to it with him. He can't help being generous. I knew he would be when I told him we'd met in England. I told him because I couldn't do anything else. It was a way of talking about you--even if it was only that way. But, oh, Chip, if I left him now and went back to you--"

"Yes, darling? What?" He spoke huskily, covering both her hands with one of his and crus.h.i.+ng them. "If you left him now and came back to me--what?"

She hurried on. "And then there's--there's the other woman. We mustn't forget _her_. What's her name, Chip?"

"Lily. She was Lily Bland."

"Yes, yes; of course. I knew that. And she loves you? But how could she help loving you? I'd hate her if she didn't. Curiously enough I don't hate her now. I wonder why? I suppose it's because I'm so sorry for her.

She's a sweet woman, isn't she?"

He answered, with head averted. "She's as n.o.ble in her way as--as this man is in his."

"That's just what I thought. I used to see her when she came to our house to call for the children. It never occurred to me that you'd marry her. If it had I don't know what I should have--But it's no use going back to that now. What would you do about her, Chip, if we decided to--to take the chance that's opened up--?"

"I don't know. I've never thought about it. I--I suppose she'd let me go--just as he's letting you go--if I put it to her in the right way."

"And what would be the right way?"

"Oh, Lord, Edith, don't ask me. How do _I_ know? I should have to tell her--the truth."

"And what would happen then?--to her I mean."

"I've no idea. She'd bear up against it. She's that sort of person. But then, inwardly, she'd very likely break her heart."

"Oh, Chip, is it worth while? Think!"

"I _am_ thinking."

"Is it the spirit? That's the thing to find out."

He shook his head sadly. "I don't know how to tell."

"But suppose I do? Would you trust to me? Would you believe that the thing I felt to be right for me was the right thing for us both?"

"I think I should."

"Well, then, listen. It's this way. You know, Chip, I love you." She had his hand now in both of hers, twisting her fingers nervously in and out between his. "I don't have to tell you, do I? I love you. Oh, how I love you! It's as if the very heart had gone out of my body into yours. And yet, Chip--oh, don't be angry--it seems to me that if I left him now and went back to you I should become something vile. It _isn't_ because he's so n.o.ble and good. No, it isn't that. And it isn't just the idea of pa.s.sing from one man to another and back again. We _have_ turned marriage into opera bouffe, we Americans, and we might as well take it as we've made it. It isn't that at all. It's--it's exactly what you said just now: it's like a man swimming away from a sinking s.h.i.+p, and leaving his wife and children to drown, because he can't rescue them. Better a thousand times to go down with them, isn't it? You may call it waste of human material, if you like, and yet--well, you know what I mean. I should be leaving him to drown and you'd be leaving her to drown; and, even though we _can't_ give them happiness by standing by, yet it's some satisfaction just to _stand_ by. Isn't that it? Isn't that the spirit?"

He withdrew his hand from hers to cover his eyes with it. He spoke hoa.r.s.ely: "It may be. I--I think it is."

"But, _if_ it is, then the spirit of the contract is different now from what it would have been--well, you know when. Then it meant that I should have stood by _you_--forgiven you, if that's the word--and shown myself truly your wife, for better or for worse. I didn't understand that. I only knew about the better. I didn't see that a man and a woman might take each other for worse--and still be true. If I had seen it--oh, what a happy woman I should have been to-day, and in all these years in which I haven't been happy at all! That was the spirit of the contract then, I suppose--but now it's different. It confuses me a little. Doesn't it confuse you?"

"Perhaps."

"Let me take your hand again; I can talk to you better like that.

Now--_now_--we've undertaken new responsibilities. We've involved others. We've let them involve themselves. We can't turn our back upon them, can we? No. I thought that's what you'd say. We can't. The contract we've made with them must come before the one we made with each other. We're bound, not only in law but in honor. Aren't we?"

He made some inarticulate sign of a.s.sent.

"And I suppose that's what he meant by the penalty--the penalty in its extreme form: that we've put ourselves where we can't keep the higher contract, the complete one, we made together--because we're bound by one lower and incomplete, to which we've got to be faithful. Isn't that the spirit _now_, don't you think?"

Again he muttered something inarticulately a.s.senting.

"Well, then, Chip, I'm going." She rose with the words.

"No, no; not yet." He caught her hand in both of his, holding it as he leaned across the table.

"Yes, Chip, now. What do we gain by my staying? We see the thing we've got to do--and we must do it. We must begin on the instant. If I were to stay a minute longer now, it would be--it would be for things we've recognized as no longer permissible. I'm going. I'm going now!"

There was something in her face that induced him to relax his hold. She withdrew her hand slowly, her eyes on his.

"Aren't you going to say good-by?"

She shook her head, from the little doorway of the rotunda. "No. What's the use? What good-by is possible between you and me? I'm--I'm just going."

And she was gone.

With a quick movement he sprang to the opening between two of the small pillars. "Edith!" She turned. "Edith! Come here. Come here, for G.o.d's sake! Only one word more."

She came back slowly, not to the door, but to the opening through which he leaned, his knee on the seat inside. "What is it?"

He got possession of her hand. "Tell me again that quotation he gave us."

She repeated it: "'The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.'"

"Good, isn't it? I suppose it _is_ from Shakespeare?"

"I don't know. I'll ask him--I'll look it up. If ever I see you again I'll tell you."

"I wish you would, because--because, if it gives us _life_, perhaps it'll carry us along."

With a quick movement he drew her to him and kissed her pa.s.sionately on the lips.