The Letter of the Contract | Page 9

and screaming, followed by another of three doing the
same. The French governess marched primly and sedately behind them.
"You see?" Edith said, quickly. "I must go. I can't see them to-night--or
speak to them--or kiss them--or hear them say their prayers--or
anything. You wouldn't understand; but--but I couldn't bear it. You
must tell them I've gone to spend a few nights with Aunt Emily, as I did
when she was ill. You must say that to the servants, too. Tell Jenny she
needn't send me anything--yet. I have some things there--that I left the
last time--"
"Oh, you're not going to stay all night," he groaned. "You'll come
back."
"Very well. If I come back--I come back. It will be so much the better
or so much the worse, as the case may be. If I come back, it will be
because I accept the compromise you make between me and--and your
other--"
He broke in hastily. "It's not a compromise--and there's no 'other.' If
you could see how far from vital the whole thing is, from a man's point
of view--"
"Unfortunately, I'm only a woman, and can see it only from a woman's
point of view. So that, if I don't come back, it will be
because--because--the Edith who was your wife is dead beyond
resurrection."
"But she isn't!"
"Perhaps not. We must see. I shall know better when I've--I've been
away from you a little."
"And in the mean time you may be risking your happiness and mine."
She shot him a reproachful glance. "Do you say that?"

"Yes, Edith, I do say it. If I've broken the letter of the contract, you may
be transgressing its spirit. Don't forget that. Take care. What I did, I did
because I couldn't help it. You can help it--"
"Oh no, I can't. That's where you haven't understood me. You say I
don't see things from your point of view, and perhaps I don't. But
neither do you see them from mine. You wonder why I don't go over
there"--she nodded toward the house--"where I had my home--where
my children have theirs--where you and I ... But I can't. That's all I can
say. I may do it some day; I don't know. But just now--I couldn't drag
myself up the steps. It would mean that we were going on as before,
when all that--that sort of thing--seems to me so--so utterly over."
"You'll feel differently when you've had time to think."
"Perhaps I shall. And time to think is all I'm asking. You understand
that, don't you? that I'm not making anything definite--yet. If I can ever
come back to you, I will. But if I can't--"
"Hello, mama! Hello, papa!" The elder boy galloped up. "We've seen
the monkeys. And one great big monkey looked like--"
"Allô, maman! Allô, papa! N's avons vu les singes--mais des drôles! Il
y en avait un qui--"
The children caught their father round the knees. Stooping, he put his
arms about them, urging them toward their mother. They were to plead
for him--to be his advocates.
"Tell mama," he whispered to the older boy, "not to go to Aunt Emily's
to-night. Tell her we can't do without her--that we want her at home."
He turned to the younger. "Dis à maman que tu vas pleurer si elle te
quitte ce soir--qu'il faut qu'elle vienne t'écouler dire la prière."
But, when he raised himself, Edith was already walking swiftly up the
Avenue. He would have followed her, only that the children seemed to
restrain him, clinging to his knees. All he could do was to watch
her--watch her while the thronging crowds and the shimmering

sun-shot dust of the golden afternoon blotted her from his sight--and
the great city-world out of which he had received her took her back.

II
RESENTMENT
It was a strange sensation to be free. It was still more strange that it was
not a sensation. It was a kind of numbness. She could only feel that she
didn't feel. In spite of her repeated silent assertions, "I'm free! I'm free!"
any consciousness of change eluded her.
It was true that there had been a moment like a descent into hell, from
which she thought she must come up another woman. Aunt Emily and
the lawyer had whirled her somewhere in a motor. Veiled as heavily as
was consistent with articulation, she had told a tale that seemed
abominable, though it was no more than a narrative of the facts. It
added to her sense of degradation to learn that one of the cheaper
dailies had published a snapshot of her taken as she was re-entering the
motor to come away. But even the horror of that moment passed, as
something too unreal to be other than a