He had taken
a seat in a day-coach to avoid the risk of meeting any one he knew, and
because he did not wish to be comfortable. When the telegram arrived,
Alexander was at his rooms on Tenth Street, packing his bag to go to
Boston. On Monday night he had written a long letter to his wife, but
when morning came he was afraid to send it, and the letter was still in
his pocket. Winifred was not a woman who could bear disappointment. She
demanded a great deal of herself and of the people she loved; and
she never failed herself. If he told her now, he knew, it would be
irretrievable. There would be no going back. He would lose the thing
he valued most in the world; he would be destroying himself and his own
happiness. There would be nothing for him afterward. He seemed to see
himself dragging out a restless existence on the Continent--Cannes,
Hyeres, Algiers, Cairo--among smartly dressed, disabled men of every
nationality; forever going on journeys that led nowhere; hurrying to
catch trains that he might just as well miss; getting up in the morning
with a great bustle and splashing of water, to begin a day that had no
purpose and no meaning; dining late to shorten the night, sleeping late
to shorten the day.
And for what? For a mere folly, a masquerade, a little thing that he
could not let go. AND HE COULD EVEN LET IT GO, he told himself. But he
had promised to be in London at mid-summer, and he knew that he would
go. . . . It was impossible to live like this any longer.
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