"So was I," he blurted. "Perhaps that's the--" He stood up suddenly

and held out his hand. "Good-by, my dear Mrs. Pontellier; good-by. You

won't--I hope you won't completely forget me." She clung to his hand,

striving to detain him.

"Write to me when you get there, won't you, Robert?" she entreated.

"I will, thank you. Good-by."

How unlike Robert! The merest acquaintance would have said something

more emphatic than "I will, thank you; good-by," to such a request.

He had evidently already taken leave of the people over at the house,

for he descended the steps and went to join Beaudelet, who was out there

with an oar across his shoulder waiting for Robert. They walked away

in the darkness. She could only hear Beaudelet's voice; Robert had

apparently not even spoken a word of greeting to his companion.

Edna bit her handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back and to

hide, even from herself as she would have hidden from another, the

emotion which was troubling--tearing--her. Her eyes were brimming with

tears.

For the first time she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she

had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her earliest teens, and

later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the

poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability.

The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to

heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate.

The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was

doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she

had held, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly

awakened being demanded.




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