The room had darkened in the rainy October twilight, and the fire was
low; Dr. Lavendar could hardly see her quivering face.
"But now it's all over between Lloyd and me. I sha'n't see him ever
any more. He would have married me, if I had been willing to give up
David. But I was not willing."
"You thought it would make everything right if you married this man?"
"Right?" she repeated, surprised; "why, of course. At least I suppose
that is what good people call right," she added dully.
"And you gave up doing right, to have David?"
She felt that she was trapped, and yet she could not understand why;
"I sacrificed myself," she said confusedly.
"No," said Dr. Lavendar; "you sacrificed a conviction. A poor, false
conviction, but such as it was, you threw it over to keep David."
She looked at him in terror; "It was just selfishness, you think?"
"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.
"Perhaps it was," she admitted. "Oh, how frightful life is! To try to
be happy, is to be bad."
"No, to try to be happy at the expense of other people, is to be bad."
"But I never did that! Lloyd's wife was dead;--Of course, if she had
been alive"--Helena lifted her head with the curious pride of caste in
sin which is so strongly felt by the woman who is a sinner;--"if she
had been alive, I wouldn't have thought of such a thing. But nobody
knew, so I never did any harm,"--then she quailed; "at least, I never
meant to do any harm. So you can't say it was at anybody's expense."
"It was at everybody's expense. Marriage is what makes us civilized.
If anybody injures marriage we all pay."
She was silent.
"If every dissatisfied wife should do what you did, could decent life
go on? Wouldn't we all drop down a little nearer the animals?"
"Perhaps so," she said vaguely. But she was not following him. She had
entered into this experience of sin, not by the door of reason, but of
emotion; she could leave it only by the same door. The high appeal to
individual renunciation for the good of the many, was entirely beyond
her. Dr. Lavendar did not press it any further.
"Well, anyhow," she said dully, "I didn't get any happiness--whether
it was at other people's expense or not. When David came, I thought,
'now I am going to be happy!' That was all I wanted: happiness. And
now you will take him away."