Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/87

 he was actual. When the whole fire and anger of a woman's life reaches out for some imagined fulfillment, she finds no luxury of phrase to say her pang. She is a movement of nature, a wind that stirs the grass, a moth blundering in the rain. I shall tell him in a minute, I shall tell him, God help me not to tell him. Is this being tempted beyond my strength? But this isn't temptation, this is just Truth. This was God Himself. Weren't we told to love God? Perhaps George would say that biology was just making fun of her. You're not supposed to love more than one person at a time—not in the same way, at least. . ..

"Even Picnics?"

"Don't speak of the Picnic," she said. "I hate to think of it. Damn the Picnic."

He looked startled.

"George made up a limerick once," she said. "It began like this: I never believed in monogamy, My husband has just made a dog o' me. But he couldn't find another rhyme."

"What's monogamy?"

"Something terrible," she said, laughing. This was the real laughter she had hoped for. She seemed lifted, purged, held in a twinkling skein of mirth. Laughter, like flame, purifies. Certainly he was adorable, but she couldn't quite make