d discrepant parts that fell into lumps of
talk that failed to join on to their predecessors, that began again at
a different level, higher or lower, that assumed new aspects in the
intervals and assimilated new considerations. We discussed the fact that
we two were no longer lovers; never before had we faced that. It seems
a strange thing to write, but as I look back, I see clearly that those
several days were the time when Marion and I were closest together,
looked for the first and last time faithfully and steadfastly into each
other's soul. For those days only, there were no pretences, I made no
concessions to her nor she to me; we concealed nothing, exaggerated
nothing. We had done with pretending. We had it out plainly and soberly
with each other. Mood followed mood and got its stark expression.

Of course there was quarreling between us, bitter quarreling, and we
said things to one another--long pent-up things that bruised and crushed
and cut. But over it all in my memory now is an effect of deliberate
confrontation, and the figure of Marion stands up, pale, melancholy,
tear-stained, injured, implacable and dignified.

"You love her?" she asked once, and jerked that doubt into my mind.

I struggled with tangled ideas and emotions. "I don't know what love
is. It's all sorts of things--it's made of a dozen strands twisted in a
thousand ways."

"But you want her? You want her now--when you think of her?"

"Yes," I reflected. "I want her--right enough."

"And me? Where do I come in?"

"I suppose you come in here."

"Well, but what are you going to do?"

"Do!" I said with the exasperation of the situation growing upon me.
"What do you want me to do?"

As I look back upon all that time--across a gulf of fifteen active
years--I find I see it with an understanding judgment. I see it as if
it were the business of some one else--indeed of two other
people--intimately known yet judged without passion. I see now that this
shock, this sudden immense disillusionment, did in real fact bring out
a mind and soul in Marion; that for the first time she emerged
from habits, timidities, imitations, phrases and a certain narrow
will-impulse, and became a personality.

Her ruling motive at first was, I think, an indignant and outraged
pride. This situation must end. She asked me categorically to give up
Effie, and I, full of fresh and glowing memories, absolutely refused.

"It's too late, Marion," I said. "It can't be don