And if it
became easier to leave you, then I should know that everything was
wrong between us; but if it kept on being hard to divide myself
between you and my work, then my work would suffer and so would you.
Either way, it couldn't go on. I'm not big enough to do both," she
said.
"I can't accept such a sacrifice."
"Don't you want me with you always?"
He seized her hands and passionately drew her close to him.
"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of
everyone, everything that touched you."
"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well
to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of
flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver,
a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers
content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable,
really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near
enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive
movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when
you ask me to," she said.
The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of
melancholy in Myra's measurement of relationships, in her
consciousness of their frailty.
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