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.Oh, how inevitable it had been! He saw himself—old—and now lame.'"If you want to keep her," Ethel said, "I know you are very fond of her.And Rosemary is deeply.""I'm fond of her," he said grimly, cutting ofT the detestable word "grateful" before it could offend his ears once more."But I have no intention of.how shall I put it?.collecting for services rendered.""You are very wise," said Ethel."Especially," he said rather primly, "since we discussed the possibility of divorce before the wedding.""Ah then." Ethel sighed and her face brightened."I'm very glad.Then she knows she can be free if that seems best? Well.this puts a different light on the matter.You and I could make do," she added thoughtfully."Yes," he said."It's not a bad life.We'd have our work.We'd be rather cozy, out of the fray.One should plan one's old age.Ken.And neither of us with chick nor child.Perhaps we ought to stick together.""Perhaps," he agreed."Not here, of course.""No.""If Rosemary and Paul Townsend were to marry.""No," he said conquering the shudder that threatened to destroy his poise completely, "certainly not here.""I wouldn't be precipitous, however," Ethel warned.' ' If Paul is not.That is, if the thing's one-sided.Rosemary might need us.""She needs to be rid of her obligations," he said harshly.Or how can she know surely.?""You are so right," said Ethel warmly."And when you |are generous and Rosemary is honorable, as I'm sure she is, why, there's no problem."(He knew there was a little problem all his own.But he'd take care of that.)"She'll come to you, one day," said Ethel, "when she finds the courage.I can't tell you how relieved I am, old dear, to know that you went into this with your eyes open.I've been a little bit afraid for you.A late-blooming romance can be so devastating to a born bachelor.Now then, can you sleep a little?""I think so," lied Mr.Gibson valiantly.He lay on the top of his bed.He couldn't bear to imagine, from Rosemary's point of view, her dilemma.He tried to contemplate his old age.But on another level, his plan beat in his mind.First find out what troubles Rosemary.Then, see to it that it troubles her no more.What is love? he thought at last with a sick descending and a thud of certainty.What is hers for me? Not my physical magnetism, heaven knows.A lame old crock.A limping horror.The fact is, I have her love, as much as I am going to get.She's fond of me.But my love for her must set her free.He lay there half an hour or more before he remembered, with a tiny crash of dismay in his brain, that Paul Townsend was a practicing Catholic, and Mr.Gibson was not so sure that divorce would be enough.Chapter XITHREE DAYS WENT BY.Roscmary did not come to him.She had recovered herself.She was just the same.He did not press her to come, or to tell him anything.He began to be afraid that she never would.Next door, Paul Townsend worked in his garden, carelessly healthy and happy and strong and visible.Old Mrs.Pyne sat on the porch.Young Jeanie flitted in and out.The cottage ran on, exempt from life and change, in that spurious harmony.Mr.Gibson spent much time alone with a book open.He contemplated his innocence.Ethel was right.He did not know one-tenth of what went on.He was ignorant in most fields.Modem psychological theories were to him just theories, to play games with.He'd believed in the poetry.Honor.Courage.Sacrifice.Old-fashioned words.Labels, for nothing? Oh, long ago, he had hidden himself in books, in words, but not the harsh words of fact.Poetry! Why? Because he was too thin-skinned and not brave enough to bear realities.He had not faced facts.He did not even know what they were.He must lean on Ethel, ufi'til he learned more.He had been strangely innocent, now he saw.Socially innocent.He had derived a good deal of innocent pleasure from the fact that students and teachers spoke to him on the campus paths, or in a corridor, or sometimes even on a street of the town.A nod, a greeting, a murmur of his name, had secured to him his identity.(I am not lost in eternity.I am Mr.Gibson of the English Department and there are those who know it.)But he had had enough of people in the course of a day.His captive audiences, his classes, had permitted him the exercise of his voice.Then there were office hours during which he sometimes talked to students with kindness, with optimism for them, and only the most meager precautions against their guile and their flattery and their showing off had been enough.So he had felt a fullness in his days, and a shy trust in the near little world; and his privacy, his solitude, had seemed natural and pleasant and not limited.Actually he had lived a most narrow, a most sheltered, a most innocent life.He knew very little about "reality."This must be how he had come to do, at the age of fifty-five, so stupid, so wicked, so foolish a thing.He had married a sick defenseless dependent trusting Rosemary.On the ridiculous premise that it would be an "arrangement." He now looked back upon the joyful early days with pity for his own blithe ignorance.The facts of flesh.The facts of propinquity.He had ignored all facts in a cloud ofx)mantic nonsense.Yes, the romantic sentimental silly lotion that he would be a healer! What ego! Then, worse, low could he have thought, ever, for one moment, that iiis quixotic marriage could turn into a love match? That lad been impossible from the beginning, and set forth in plain arithmetic.Thirty-two from fifty-five leaves twenty-three and ever would.He was her father.emotionally.He was help, kindness, protection, and she loved him for all this, as he knew.What frightened him now was the possibility that Rosemary might go on with her bargain, until he was ancient, and never tell even herself how she wished that he would die.Rosemary might undertake to endure.She had endured eight years with the old professor.She would not want to hurt him
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