"
She sighed. "Then it's only another form of deception and a meaner one.
Don't you see that?"
"I see that we're not accountable to any Lady Susans on earth!"
"Then why are you ashamed of what we are doing here?"
"Because I'm sick of pretending that you're my wife when you're not--when
you won't be."
She looked at him sadly.
"If I were your wife you'd have to go on pretending. You'd have to pretend
that I'd never been--anything else. And our friends would have to pretend
that they believed what you pretended."
Gannett pulled off the sofa-tassel and flung it away.
"You're impossible," he groaned.
"It's not I--it's our being together that's impossible. I only want you to
see that marriage won't help it."
"What will help it then?"
She raised her head.
"My leaving you."
"Your leaving me?" He sat motionless, staring at the tassel which lay at
the other end of the room. At length some impulse of retaliation for the
pain she was inflicting made him say deliberately:
"And where would you go if you left me?"
"Oh!" she cried.
He was at her side in an instant.
"Lydia--Lydia--you know I didn't mean it; I couldn't mean it! But you've
driven me out of my senses; I don't know what I'm saying. Can't you get
out of this labyrinth of self-torture? It's destroying us both."
"That's why I must leave you."
"How easily you say it!" He drew her hands down and made her face him.
"You're very scrupulous about yourself--and others.
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