or a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answer
his letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had just
crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then.
I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till I
could think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to give
him up, never to see him again--Felix was there, you know--I'd decided
to give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I was
that base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing to
take me back?--now after this long time? It's a month since I got his
letter."

Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are you
sure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would be
pretty hard on Austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straight
sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--"

Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous:
"Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn't
anything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think about
it--and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser I
grew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hung
on to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killed
myself thinking--thinking--All I'd done was to think out an ingenious,
low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then,
after Judith's cablegram came, I started home--Arnold, what a journey
that was!--and I found--I found Mother was gone, just gone away
forever--and I found Father out of his head with sorrow--and Judith
told me about--about her trouble. It was like going through a long
black corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the other
side. But when I did--A door that I couldn't ever, ever break
down--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone through
it into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thing
Mother did for me--what nobody but Mother could have done. I don't
want to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matter
to me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you
can have them without losing something finer. And I suppose some
people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But mine
wouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all--it all seems so
unimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing matters
now but A