Otherwise, the affair must
be broken off, absolutely, finally, and forever. From this you can
see that the Obstacle was not bad-hearted, but only pig-headed.
Well, for five or six years things drifted rather miserably along
this way. Will Hermann was forbidden the house at Morristown. Alice
was practically a captive; her correspondence was censored. But
of course, even before Marconi, wireless communication in matters
of this kind has always been possible.
The trouble was that the state of affairs between them, while
conventionally correct, was thoroughly unnatural and full of peril.
Alice, a very good girl, obedient and tractable, was in danger of
becoming a recalcitrant and sour old maid. Will, a healthy and
normal young man, with no bad habits, was in danger of being driven
to them by the emptiness and exasperation of his mind. The worst
of it all was that both of the young people were, in accordance
with a well-known law of nature, growing older with what seemed
to them a frightful and unreasonable rapidity. The years crawled
like snails.
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