There are
certain women who are a form of insurance to a man; and Anne gave a
poise and solidity to Julian's presentation of himself which his own
flibbertigibbet manner made particularly necessary.
I think this view of the matter disturbed Anne herself, though she
was too clever to say so; or perhaps too numbed by the utter wreck
of her own life to see as clearly as usual the rocks ahead of Julian.
It was she, I believe, who first mentioned, who first thought of
divorce, and certainly she who arranged the details. Julian, still
in the more ideal stage of his emotion, had hardly wakened to the
fact that his new love was marriageable. But Mrs. Julian, with the
practical eye of her sex, saw in a flash all it might mean to him,
at his age, to begin life again with a young beauty who adored him.
She saw this, at least, as soon as she saw anything; for Julian,
like most of us when the occasion rises, developed a very pretty
power of concealment. He had for a month been seeing Miss Littell
every day before any of us knew that he went to see her at all.
Certainly Anne, unsuspicious by nature, was unprepared for the
revelation.
It took place in the utterly futile, unnecessary way such
revelations always do take place.
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