“Peter,” she said gravely, “I must
prepare my outfit. I go to America.”
“With Stewart?”
“Alone, Peter, to work, to be very good, to
be something. I am very happy, although—Peter,
may I kiss you?”
“Certainly,” said Peter, and took her
caress gravely, patting her thin shoulder. His
thoughts were in the garden with Harmony, who had
cared enough to come back.
“Life,” said Peter soberly, “life
is just one damned thing after another, isn’t
it?”
But Marie was anxiously examining the hem of a skirt.
The letter from Anita reached Stewart the following
morning. She said:—
“I have been thinking things over, Walter, and
I am going to hurt you very much—but not,
believe me, without hurting myself. Perhaps my
uppermost thought just now is that I am disappointing
you, that I am not so big as you thought I would be.
For now, in this final letter, I can tell you how
much I cared. Oh, my dear, I did care!
“But I will not marry you. And when this
reaches you I shall have gone very quietly out of
your life. I find that such philosophy as I have
does not support me to-night, that all my little rules
of life are inadequate. Individual liberty was
one—but there is no liberty of the individual.
Life—other lives—press too closely.
You, living your life as seemed best and easiest, and
carrying down with you into shipwreck the little Marie
and—myself!
“For, face to face with the fact, I cannot accept
it, Walter. It is not only a question of my past
against yours. It is of steady revolt and loathing
of the whole thing; not the flash of protest before
one succumbs to the inevitable, but a deep-seated hatred
that is a part of me and that would never forget.
“You say that you are the same man I would have
married, only more honest for concealing nothing.
But—and forgive me this, it insists on
coming up in my mind—were you honest, really?
You told me, and it took courage, but wasn’t
it partly fear? What motive is unmixed?
Honesty—and fear, Walter. You were
preparing against a contingency, although you may
not admit this to yourself.
“I am not passing judgment on you. God
forbid that I should! I am only trying to show
you what is in my mind, and that this break is final.
The revolt is in myself, against something sordid and
horrible which I will not take into my life. And
for that reason time will make no difference.
“I am not a child, and I am not unreasonable.
But I ask a great deal of this life of mine that stretches
ahead, Walter—home and children, the love
of a good man, the fulfillment of my ideals.
And you ask me to start with a handicap. I cannot
do it. I know you are resentful, but—I
know that you understand.
“Anita.”
The little Georgiev was in trouble those days.
The Balkan engine was threatening to explode, but
continued to gather steam, with Bulgaria sitting on
the safety-valve. Austria was mobilizing troops,
and there were long conferences in the Burg between
the Emperor and various bearded gentlemen, while the
military prayed in the churches for war.
