Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/366

 way was to pledge to themselves and plan a life which could not lead to such visions; and so there in the garden, but soon holding close once more and between kisses and embraces, they planned.

Quixotically in part, perhaps; but also in part practically. For she needed him now; it was impossible for her to long continue alone with her father in a situation too strained for both of them. If Gregg did not marry her, she would work and live alone; and he would work and live alone; so why not both work, married? They realized that they could not start out in Evanston, at least not in "their" part of Evanston or in a similar part of Chicago or of Winnetka. They would live as forty-dollar-a-week people lived and not put a move into a better flat or put the buying of a car before the coming of children.

In his room, and in his chair which Marjorie always had called "father's chair," Charles Hale was seated beside a shaded lamp with a book in his hand; but he consumed little time at reading.

He had to think a good deal about himself and Sybil Russell with whom, that day, he had broken; or rather, she had realized on this day that he meant to break with her; and they had come to an end. At least, they called it an end; but such an end settled little for him. He would not see Sybil in the old way, that was all. Some day there must be for him another woman; and she would be to him another Sybil or she might be something else, according to what action he now took in his personal affairs.

This meant what course he followed in regard to his wife and daughter; and the one sensible course with his wife was to arrange with her for a formal separation.