Burned Bridges

"Do you want to know? Can't you see good grounds why we two, of all

people, should not marry?" she asked evenly. "Can you see anything to

make it desirable except a--a welling up of natural passion? Don't hold

my arms so tight. You hurt."

He released his unthinking grip and stepped back a pace, his expression

one of hurt bewilderment at the paradox of Sophie's admission and

refusal.

"We're at opposite poles in everything," she went on. "I don't believe

in the things you believe in. I don't see life with your vision at all.

I never shall. We'd be in a continual clash. I like you but I couldn't

possibly live with you--you couldn't live with me. I rebel at the future

I can see for us. Apart from yourself, the things you'd want to share

with me I despise. If I had to live in an atmosphere of sermons and

shams, of ministerial sanctimoniousness and material striving for a

bigger church and a bigger salary, I'd suffocate--I'd hate myself--and

in the end I'd hate you too."

A little note of scorn crept into her voice, and she stopped. When she

spoke again her tone had changed, deepened into uncertainty, freighted

with wistfulness.

"I'm not good--not in your sense of the word," she said. "I don't even

want to be. It would take all the joy out of living. I want to sing and

dance and be vibrantly alive. I want to see far countries and big

cities, to go about among people whose outlook isn't bounded by a forest

and a lake shore, nor by the things you set store by. And I'll be a

discontented pendulum until I do.

"Why," she burst out passionately, "I'd be the biggest little fool on

earth to marry you just because--just because I like you, because you

kissed me and for a minute made me feel that life could be bounded by

you and kisses. You're only the second possible man I've ever seen. You

and Tommy Ashe. And before you came I could easily have persuaded myself

that I loved Tommy."

"Now you think perhaps you love me, but that you might perhaps care in

the same way for the next attractive man who comes along? Is that it?"

Thompson asked with a touch of bitterness.

"I might think so--how can one tell?" she sighed. "But I'm very sure

my impulses will never plunge me into anything headlong, as you would

have me plunge. Don't you see," she made an impatient gesture, "we're

just like a couple of fledgling birds trying our wings. And you want to

proceed on the assumption that we're equal to anything, sure of

everything. I know I'm not. You--"

She made again that quick, expressive gesture with her hands. Something

about it made Thompson suddenly feel hopeless and forlorn, the airy

castles reared overnight out of the stuff of dreams a tumbled heap

about him. He sat down on one of the rude chairs, and turned his face to

look out the window, a lump slowly gathering in his throat.