They proceeded to the schools that morning as usual, Sue entering
the class-room, where he could see the back of her head through the
glass partition whenever he turned his eyes that way. As he went on
giving and hearing lessons his forehead and eyebrows twitched from
concentrated agitation of thought, till at length he tore a scrap
from a sheet of scribbling paper and wrote:
Your request prevents my attending to work at all. I don't
know what I am doing! Was it seriously made?
He folded the piece of paper very small, and gave it to a little
boy to take to Sue. The child toddled off into the class-room.
Phillotson saw his wife turn and take the note, and the bend of her
pretty head as she read it, her lips slightly crisped, to prevent
undue expression under fire of so many young eyes. He could not see
her hands, but she changed her position, and soon the child returned,
bringing nothing in reply. In a few minutes, however, one of Sue's
class appeared, with a little note similar to his own. These words
only were pencilled therein:
I am sincerely sorry to say that it was seriously made.
Phillotson looked more disturbed than before, and the meeting-place
of his brows twitched again. In ten minutes he called up the child
he had just sent to her, and dispatched another missive:
God knows I don't want to thwart you in any reasonable way.
My whole thought is to make you comfortable and happy. But
I cannot agree to such a preposterous notion as your going
to live with your lover. You would lose everybody's respect
and regard; and so should I!
After an interval a similar part was enacted in the class-room, and
an answer came:
I know you mean my good. But I don't want to be respectable!
To produce "Human development in its richest diversity" (to
quote your Humboldt) is to my mind far above respectability.
No doubt my tastes are low--in your view--hopelessly low!
If you won t let me go to him, will you grant me this one
request--allow me to live in your house in a separate way?
To this he returned no answer.
She wrote again:
I know what you think. But cannot you have pity on me? I beg
you to; I implore you to be merciful! I would not ask if I
were not almost compelled by what I can't bear! No poor woman
has ever wished more than I that Eve had not fallen, so that
(as the primitive Christians believed) some harmless mode of
vegetation might have peopled Paradise. But I won't trifle!
Be kind to me--even though I have not been kind to you! I
will go away, go abroad, anywhere, and never trouble you.