opportunity. We've a lot to talk over. I've a taxi outside.
Will you drive around a little?"

"Certainly, if you'll just wait while I telephone."

I called up Lucy.

"I can't meet you this morning, I am to have a talk with John. Somehow
I feel sure that something is going to be decided." My heart was
beating quick and fast. I was unaccountably excited. This excitement
seemed to communicate itself to Lucy. She said as much.

"I'm terribly excited," she said, and her voice had a kind of wild,
triumphant note in it. "You'll tell me everything the minute you can?"

"Of course. Good luck."

"Good luck."

We drove across Forty-third Street and up the crowded Avenue for
several blocks without speaking. Then Fulton smiled a little and spoke
in a level, easy voice.

"Perhaps," he said, "the water is not so cold as it looks. Shall we
take the plunge?"

"By all means," I said. My heart was thumping nervously. I hoped he
would not notice it.

"Lucy and I," he said, "as you know, were wonderfully happy for a good
many years. Until last winter, I was never away from her over night.
And then, only because of a financial crisis. I have never even looked
at another woman with desire, or thought of one. Until last winter,
Lucy was the same about other men. She was a wonderful little mother
to her kids, and the most faithful, loving, valiant wife that ever
belonged to a man full of cares and worries."

"I know all this, John," I said; "I could wish that you had been
unhappy together."

"I wish to make several things clear," he said. "According to all
civil and moral law, I am an absolutely undivorceable man. There is
only one ground for divorce in this state. To clear the decks for you
and Lucy, I should have to smirch myself and take a black eye."

"But the people who count always understand these things."

"In order to secure my own unhappiness, to make it everlasting, I
should have to perjure myself. I know that it is the custom of the
country for married gentlemen who are no longer loved to perjure
themselves. But it seems to me a custom that would bear mending.
However, it is not yet a question of that."

"Still undecided?"

"No. My mind is made up. I am prepared to step down and take my black
eye on certain conditions."

I bowed my head.

"Lucy," he said, "doesn't love the children as much as I do. She has
allowed herself to forget how dear they are to her, so it would have to
be un