"So that is what you meant! It was a--well, a sort of a threat."
"I had no intention of threatening you, my dear. You ought to know me
better. That clipping was sent me attached to the slip. The only reason
I let you see it was because I think you ought to know how the most
innocent things are misconstrued."
"You couldn't divorce me if you wanted to." Then her defiance faded in
a weak terror. She began to cry, shameless frightened tears that rolled
down her cheeks. She reminded him that she was the mother of his child,
that she had sacrificed her life to both of them, and that now they
would both leave her and turn her adrift. She had served her purpose,
now let her go.
Utter hopelessness kept him dumb. He knew of old that she would cry
until she was ready to stop, or until she had gained her point. And he
knew, too, that she expected him to put his arms around her again, in
token of his complete surrender. The very fact hardened him. He did not
want to put his arms around her. He wanted, indeed, to get out into the
open air and walk off his exasperation. The scent in the room stifled
him.
When he made no move toward her she gradually stopped crying, and gave
way to the rage that was often behind her tears.
"Just try to divorce me, and see!"
"Good God, I haven't even mentioned divorce. I only said we must try to
get along better. To agree."
"Which means, I dare say, that I am to agree with you!" But she had
one weapon still. Suddenly she smiled a little wistfully, and made the
apparently complete surrender that always disarmed him.
"I'll be good from now on, Clay. I'll be very, very good. Only--don't be
always criticizing me."
She held up her lips, and after a second's hesitation he kissed her. He
knew he was precisely where he had been when he started, and he had a
hopeless sense of the futility of the effort he had made. Natalie had
got by with a bad half-hour, and would proceed to forget it as quickly
as she always forgot anything disagreeable. Still, she was in a more
receptive mood than usual, and he wondered if that would not be as good
a time as any to speak about his new plan as to the mill. He took an
uneasy turn or two about the room, feeling her eyes on him.