His lips were open to inquire what she meant, when he was unpleasantly spared the necessity. Out of a dark recess of memory sprang the ghost—the "whim." He was astounded, irritated, alarmed. He had supposed he had heard the last of that silly notion about helping him; she hadn’t spoken of it in nearly two years. Now—here it was again!
"Dick," she was saying, her hand clasping his, "I’ve appreciated your not speaking of it, or even talking about what you were doing. If you had, the delay’d have been much harder to bear. For, as long as Winchie needs me, I simply can’t come."
"I understand, dear," said he, much relieved.
"It’s a dreadfully long delay, isn’t it?" she went on, dreamily gazing up into the great quiet sky. "The more I see of married people, and the more I think about married life, the clearer I see that two must have a common interest, a common career, or they drift apart, and usually the woman sinks down and down into a gadabout or a fat frump or a professional minder of other people’s business—a gossip or a charity worker."
If she had been looking, even in that faint light she could have seen his expression of gathering displeasure.
"Or else," she went on, "she seeks love elsewhere. Isn’t it strange, Dick, how in unhappy marriages the so-called good women are the bad ones, and the so-called bad ones good? I mean, when a weak woman finds herself married wrong she accepts it and gently rots, and people say she’s a good soul, when she’s really degrading herself and rotting everybody round her. While a strong woman—one that’s worth while—refuses to be crushed, and people call her bad. But then I’ve begun to think life’s like one of those exhibitions where some cut-up slips round and changes the labels so that everything’s named wrong."
She was talking along lightly, talking what seemed to her the plainest common sense, and was all unconscious that she had brought him and herself where both were almost peering into the abyss between them. He was sitting up, was getting ready to deliver himself. Her next remark checked him. "Thank Heaven, Dick, you and I are going to have the interest that makes two lives one—makes it impossible to grow apart. It seems to me I can’t wait for Winchie to release me so that I may come and work with you. Aren’t you glad I really, naturally, like chemistry, and already know something about it?"