ar Lucy, you mustn't show signs of distress so early in the game.
What we are discussing, or trying to throw a little light on, is the
subject which just now, by all accounts, should interest you more than
anything else in the world. Furthermore, I really must insist on
consideration for myself and the children."

"No amount of talk ever made me do right--or wrong," said Lucy; "I just
do right or wrong, and of course _you_ think this is wrong. So what's
the use?"

"Think it wrong," exclaimed Fulton, "of course I do. Don't _you_?"
His voice expressed almost horrified surprise. "Don't _you_ think it
wrong to fall out of love with your husband, into love with another
man, and to take no more interest in your children than if they were a
couple of wooden dolls made in Germany?"

"Caring enough makes everything right," she said, still wearily, as if
the whole subject bored her.

"Caring _enough_!" exclaimed John. "Oh, caring _enough_ makes
everything right. But do you care _enough_--either of you? I may
change my mind, but just now, as a man fighting for what little
happiness there may be left for him in the world, this question of how
much you care is the crux of the whole matter. If I thought that you
cared _enough_ I'd take my hat off to the exception which proves the
rule that all illicit passions are wrong. If I thought that you cared
_enough_ I'd think that a great wonder had come to pass in the world,
and I'd give you my blessing and tell you to go your ways."

Lucy rose and went appealingly to him. "John, dear," she said, "we
_do_ care enough."

He turned to me quickly.

"And you think that?"

"I care enough," I said, "so that nothing else matters--not even the
hurt to you."

"Do you care so much that no argument will change you?"

I think Lucy and I must both have smiled at him.

"No pressure of opposition?"

"Caring is supposed to thrive on opposition, isn't it?" said I.

"In short," said John, "if I refuse to be divorced you care enough to
run away together into social ostracism?"

Lucy smiled at me and I smiled back at her. And at that Fulton's
calmness left him for a moment.

"My God," he cried, "I am up against it."

But almost instantly he had himself once more in hand, and was speaking
again in level, almost cheerful tones.

"Social ostracism," he said, "would be very horrid if you stopped
caring for each other."

"Why take it for granted that we'd stop caring?"

"I don't.