In the Days of the Comet

Suddenly I looked up.  Nettie had come back and stood looking down at me.

“Since we talked I have been thinking,” she said.  “Edward has let me come to you alone.  And I feel perhaps I can talk better to you alone.”

I said nothing and that embarrassed her.

“I don’t think we ought to part,” she said.

“No—­I don’t think we ought to part,” she repeated.

“One lives,” she said, “in different ways.  I wonder if you will understand what I am saying, Willie.  It is hard to say what I feel.  But I want it said.  If we are to part for ever I want it said—­very plainly.  Always before I have had the woman’s instinct and the woman’s training which makes one hide.  But-—- Edward is not all of me.  Think of what I am saying—­Edward is not all of me. . . .  I wish I could tell you better how I see it.  I am not all of myself.  You, at any rate, are a part of me and I cannot bear to leave you.  And I cannot see why I should leave you.  There is a sort of blood link between us, Willie.  We grew together.  We are in one another’s bones.  I understand you.  Now indeed I understand.  In some way I have come to an understanding at a stride.  Indeed I understand you and your dream.  I want to help you.  Edward—­Edward has no dreams. . . .  It is dreadful to me, Willie, to think we two are to part.”

“But we have settled that—­part we must.”

“But why?”

“I love you.”

“Well, and why should I hide it Willie?—­I love you. . . .”  Our eyes met.  She flushed, she went on resolutely:  “You are stupid.  The whole thing is stupid.  I love you both.”

I said, “You do not understand what you say.  No!”

“You mean that I must go.”

“Yes, yes.  Go!”

For a moment we looked at one another, mute, as though deep down in the unfathomable darkness below the surface and present reality of things dumb meanings strove to be.  She made to speak and desisted.

&#8220;But <i>must</i> I go?&#8221; she said at last, with quivering lips, and the
tears in her eyes were stars.&#160; Then she began, &#8220;Willie------&#8221;

“Go!” I interrupted her. . . .  “Yes.”

Then again we were still.

She stood there, a tearful figure of pity, longing for me, pitying me.  Something of that wider love, that will carry our descendants at last out of all the limits, the hard, clear obligations of our personal life, moved us, like the first breath of a coming wind out of heaven that stirs and passes away.  I had an impulse to take her hand and kiss it, and then a trembling came to me, and I knew that if I touched her, my strength would all pass from me. . . .

And so, standing at a distance one from the other, we parted, and Nettie went, reluctant and looking back, with the man she had chosen, to the lot she had chosen, out of my life—­like the sunlight out of my life. . . .

Then, you know, I suppose I folded up this newspaper and put it in my pocket.  But my memory of that meeting ends with the face of Nettie turning to go.