Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/140

128 "Possibly, though I've not seen him for months. It's simply the way it strikes me too. It's an old wife's tale. Gravener made some reference to the legal aspect, but such an absurdly loose arrangement has no legal aspect."

"Ruth doesn't insist on that," said Mrs. Mulville; "and it's for her exactly this technical weakness that constitutes the force of the moral obligation."

"Are you repeating her words?" I enquired. I forget what else Adelaide said, but she said she was magnificent. I thought of George Gravener confronted with such magnificence as that, and I asked what could have made two such people ever suppose they understood each other. Mrs. Mulville assured me the girl loved him as such a woman could love, and that she suffered as such a woman could suffer. Nevertheless she wanted to see me. At this I sprang up with a groan. "Oh, I'm so sorry! when?" Small though her sense of humor, I think Adelaide laughed at my tone. We discussed the day, the nearest it would be convenient I should come out; but before she went I asked my visitor how long she had been acquainted with these prodigies.

"For several weeks, but I was pledged to secrecy."

"And that's why you didn't write?"

"I couldn't very well tell you she was with me without telling you that no time had even yet been fixed for her marriage. And I couldn't very well