FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  
vely she had shifted her position putting herself between him and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything--I thought we were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As she spoke, the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her face. Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--" "The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?" "You are not obliged to give it." "You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did." He made a protesting gesture. "You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went on. "That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it can't go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law...the obligation that love creates...being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered...is there?" She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see now...what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired...but _I_ was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the dreadful part of it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it meant. But I've been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me--things I hadn't noticed...when you and I..." She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. "I see now that _you_ didn't understand--did you?" Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled. "No," he said, "I didn't understand." She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your life falling in ruins...the world slipping from you...and you couldn't speak or move!" She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I know--now I know," she repeated. "I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer. She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me...for not understanding that _you_ didn't understand... That's all I wanted to s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
understand
 

Arment

 

couldn

 

obliged

 

things

 

wanted

 

understanding

 

thinking

 

bewildered

 

leaves


realized
 

plaintively

 
noticed
 

dreadful

 

closer

 

sudden

 

lifted

 

leaning

 

slipping

 

repeated


quickly

 
forgive
 

looked

 

stammer

 
trembled
 

comprehension

 

raised

 
phrases
 

falling

 

triumph


wondered

 

painful

 

perfectly

 

swelled

 

throat

 

unfortunate

 

visibly

 

increasing

 

constraint

 
emotion

happened

 
Suddenly
 
morning
 

lurking

 

exclusion

 

possessing

 

anguish

 

echoed

 

obligation

 

recognize