If she doesn't, she's simply a sponge, clinging to a man for
what's in it. I couldn't bear that. You've been rather painfully frank;
so will I be. One unhappy marriage is quite enough for me. Looking back,
I can see that even if Walter Monohan hadn't stirred a feeling in me
which I don't deny,--but which I'm not nearly so sure of as I was some
time ago,--I'd have come to just this stage, anyway. I was drifting all
the time. My baby and the conventions, that reluctance most women have
to make a clean sweep of all the ties they've been schooled to think
unbreakable, kept me moving along the old grooves. It would have come
about a little more gradually, that's all. But I have broken away, and
I'm going to live my own life after a fashion, and I'm going to achieve
independence of some sort. I'm never going to be any man's mate again
until I'm sure of myself--and of him. There's my philosophy of life, as
simply as I can put it. I don't think you need to worry about me. Right
now I couldn't muster up the least shred of passion of any sort. I seem
to have felt so much since last summer, that I'm like a sponge that's
been squeezed dry."
"I don't blame you, dear," Linda said wistfully. "A woman's heart is a
queer thing, though. When you compare the two men--Oh, well, I know
Walter so thoroughly, and you don't. You couldn't ever have cared much
for Jack."
"That hasn't any bearing on it now," Stella answered. "I'm still his
wife, and I respect him, and I've got a stubborn sort of pride.
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