"We have talked too much," I said to her
presently. But now it was she who would not desist.
"You see, with a woman it is for better, for worse--but with a man--"
"With a Saxon man," I said, "it is also for better, for worse. It is one
woman."
She sat and thought for a long time. "Suppose," she said, "that no one
ever came."
Now with swift remorse I could see that in her own courage she was
feeling her way, haltingly, slowly, toward solution of problems which
most women take ready solved from others. But, as I thank God, a filmy
veil, softening, refining, always lay between her and reality. In her
intentness she laid hold upon my arm, her two hands clasping.
"Suppose two were here, a man and a woman, and he swore before those
eternal witnesses that he would not go away any time until she was dead
and laid away up in the trees, to dry away and blow off into the air,
and go back--"
"Into the flowers," I added, choking.
"Yes, into the trees and the flowers--so that when she was dead and he
was dead, and they were both gone back into the flowers, they would
still know each other for ever and ever and never be ashamed--would that
be a marriage before God, John Cowles?"
What had I brought to this girl's creed of life, heretofore always so
sweet and usual? I did not answer.
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