“Mm, Fred’s an awful nice man in his way an’ I s’pose I oughta be happy. He really loves me, Fred does, an’ he don’t seem to lose his temper the way some men do. ’Course, he’s a little stingy with money but then I s’pose he’s tryin’ to look out for the future.” “Do you love him now, Luce?” Her head drooped a little and she was silent for a time. “I guess it’s terrible of me not to love him, after all he’s done for me, but I just don’t. I always keep rememberin’ all of your funny ways an’ all the time we was together an’ I feel ashamed of it too ’cause it’s kinda like not bein’ true to Fred, but I can’t help it. There’s been times when I’ve managed to forget about you but they don’t last long enough.” He tried to make himself feel like a helpless knave as he listened to this simple child of earth who longed for the palely inexplicable god before whom she had once grovelled in rhythmic speechlessness. He had taken all of her eager silences, pardoned by the damp understanding of flesh, and bestowed upon her in return nothing save the blurred vision of thoughts and emotions which it would have been useless for her to understand, and the tantalizing fantasy of his embraces. If he had stayed with her he would have mutilated, kicked, and evaded every longing and purpose of his life while she would have revelled in happiness. Walking down this street were thousands of people, trying to embalm a softly sensual hour with the fluids and devices of bravely stupid lies, and inventing words--“honor,” “respectability”--to conceal the grotesquely snickering effect of their lives. Life was, indeed, an insipid mountebank! “Luce, I ought to feel like a selfish dog, for if I did, then at least I could give you a belated shoulder to cry upon,” he said. “We’re different persons, that doesn’t need to be said, but still I’m sorry at times that we parted. I need your stupidity.” “Do you still care for me, Carl?” “There are times when I want you again. You brought me a delicate dumbness which I could change into any kind of speech, with my fingers and words. Your simplicity doesn’t swagger, or point admiringly to itself, and I like that. Just now I am surrounded by people who are not different from you except that they have memorized three or four thousand words more, and use them with a moderate degree of cunning. Your silences are much better.” “I’m not always silent ’cause I don’t understand what you say. Sometimes I do understand, but I keep quiet ’cause I don’t know how to tell you about it.” They turned down a side-street and he looked questioningly at her. “Aren’t you afraid that Fred may see us together?” he asked. “I forgot to tell you. He left this afternoon for Pittsburg, to see his mother, an’ he’ll be gone for two weeks. I’m all alone now.”