Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/368

 nature. Your children would have been the realities then, probably. If they 'd been commonplace, you 'd have killed them with driving. You 'd have managed some way to live twenty times as much as the people around you."

Fred paused. He sought along the shadowy ceiling and heavy mouldings for words. When he began again, his voice was lower, and at first he spoke with less conviction, though again it grew on him. "Now I knew all this—oh, knew it better than I can ever make you understand! You 've been running a handicap. You had no time to lose. I wanted you to have what you need and to get on fast—get through with me, if need be; I counted on that. You 've no time to sit round and analyze your conduct or your feelings. Other women give their whole lives to it. They 've nothing else to do. Helping a man to get his divorce is a career for them; just the sort of intellectual exercise they like."

Fred dived fiercely into his pockets as if he would rip them out and scatter their contents to the winds. Stopping before her, he took a deep breath and went on again, this time slowly. "All that sort of thing is foreign to you. You 'd be nowhere at it. You have n't that kind of mind. The grammatical niceties of conduct are dark to you. You re simple—and poetic." Fred's voice seemed to be wandering about in the thickening dusk. You won't play much. You won't, perhaps, love many times." He paused. "And you did love me, you know. Your railroad friend would have understood me. I could have thrown you back. The reverse was there,—it stared me in the face,—but I could n't pull it. I let you drive ahead." He threw out his hands. What Thea noticed, oddly enough, was the flash of the firelight on his cuff link. He turned again. "And you 'll always drive ahead," he muttered. "It 's your way."

There was a long silence. Fred had dropped into a chair. He seemed, after such an explosion, not to have a word