THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: Short Stories, Novels, Poems & Essays. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
be afraid of knowledge. When we all know about this we can stop it! Think of that. We can religiously rid the world of all these—'undesirable citizens.'"
"How, Grandma?"
"Easy enough, my dear. By not marrying them."
There was a lasting silence.
Grandma finally went to sleep, making a little soft whistling sound through her parted lips; but Vivian lay awake for long slow hours.
It was one thing to make up her own mind, though not an easy one, by any means; it was quite another to tell Morton.
He gave her no good opportunity. He did not say again, "Will you marry me?" So that she could say, "No," and be done with it. He did not even say, "When will you marry me?" to which she could answer "Never!" He merely took it for granted that she was going to, and continued to monopolize her as far as possible, with all pleasant and comfortable attentions.
She forced the situation even more sharply than she wished, by turning from him with a shiver when he met her on the stairs one night and leaned forward as if to kiss her.
He stopped short.
"What is the matter, Vivian—are you ill?"
"No—" She could say nothing further, but tried to pass him.
"Look here—there is something. You've been—different—for several days. Have I done anything you don't like?"
"Oh, Morton!" His question was so exactly to the point; and so exquisitely inadequate! He had indeed.
"I care too much for you to let anything stand between us now," he went on.
"Come, there's no one in the upper hall—come and 'tell me the worst.'"
"As well now as ever." thought the girl. Yet when they sat on the long window seat, and he turned his handsome face toward her, with that newer, better look on it, she could not believe that this awful thing was true.
"Now then—What is wrong between us?" he said.
She answered only, "I will tell you the worst, Morton. I cannot marry you—ever."
He whitened to the lips, but asked quietly, "Why?"
"Because you have—Oh, I cannot tell you!"
"I have a right to know, Vivian. You have made a man of me. I love you with my whole heart. What have I done—that I have not told you?"
Then she recalled his contrite confessions; and contrasted what he had told her with what he had not; with the unspeakable fate to which he would have consigned her—and those to come; and a sort of holy rage rose within her.
"You never told me of the state of your health, Morton."
It was done. She looked to see him fall at her feet in utter abashment, but he did nothing of the kind. What he did do astonished her beyond measure. He rose to his feet, with clenched fists.
"Has that damned doctor been giving me away?" he demanded. "Because if he has I'll kill him!"
"He has not," said Vivian. "Not by the faintest hint, ever. And is that all you think of?—
"Good-bye."
She rose to leave him, sick at heart.
Then he seemed to realize that she was going; that she meant it.
"Surely, surely!" he cried, "you won't throw me over now! Oh, Vivian! I told you I had been wild—that I wasn't fit to touch your little slippers! And I wasn't going to ask you to marry me till I felt sure this was all done with. All the rest of my life was yours, darling—is yours. You have made me over—surely you won't leave me now!"
"I must," she said.
He looked at her despairingly. If he lost her he lost not only a woman, but the hope of a life. Things he had never thought about before had now grown dear to him; a home, a family, an honorable place in the world, long years of quiet happiness.
"I can't lose you!" he said. "I can't!"
She did not answer, only sat there with a white set face and her hands tight clenched in her lap.
"Where'd you get this idea anyhow?" he burst out again. "I believe it's that woman doctor! What does she know!"
"Look here, Morton," said Vivian firmly. "It is not a question of who told me. The important thing is that it's—true! And I cannot marry you."
"But Vivian—" he pleaded, trying to restrain the intensity of his feeling; "men get over these things. They do, really. It's not so awful as you seem to think. It's very common. And I'm nearly well. I was going to wait a year or two yet—to make sure—. Vivian! I'd cut my hand off before I'd hurt you!"
There was real agony in his voice, and her heart smote her; but there was something besides her heart ruling the girl now.
"I am sorry—I'm very sorry," she said dully. "But I will not marry you."
"You'll throw me over—just for that! Oh, Vivian don't—you can't. I'm no worse than other men. It seems so terrible to you just because you're so pure and white. It's only what they call—wild oats, you know. Most men do it."
She shook her head.
"And will you punish me—so cruelly—for that? I can't live without you, Vivian—I won't!"
"It is not a question of punishing you, Morton," she said gently. "Nor myself. It is not the sin I am considering. It is the consequences!"
He felt a something high and implacable in the gentle girl; something he had never found in her before. He looked at her with despairing eyes. Her white grace, her stately little ways, her delicate beauty, had never seemed so desirable.
"Good God, Vivian. You can't mean it. Give me time. Wait for me. I'll be straight all the rest of my life—I mean it. I'll be true to you, absolutely. I'll do anything you say—only don't give me up!"
She felt old, hundreds of years old, and as remote as far mountains.
"It isn't anything you can do—in the rest of your life, my poor boy! It is what you have done—in the first of it!... Oh, Morton! It isn't right to let us grow up without knowing! You never would have done it if you'd known—would you? Can't you—can't we—do something to—stop this awfulness?"
Her tender heart suffered in the pain she was inflicting, suffered too in her own loss; for as she faced the thought of final separation she found that her grief ran back into the far-off years of childhood. But she had made up her mind with a finality only the more absolute because it hurt her. Even what he said of possible recovery did not move her—the very thought of marriage had become impossible.
"I shall never marry," she added, with a shiver; thinking that he might derive some comfort from the thought; but he replied with a bitter derisive little laugh. He did not rise to her appeal to "help the others." So far in life the happiness of Morton Elder had been his one engrossing care; and now the unhappiness of Morton Elder assumed even larger proportions.
That bright and hallowed future to which he had been looking forward so earnestly had been suddenly withdrawn from him; his good resolutions, his "living straight" for the present, were wasted.
"You women that are so superior," he said, "that'll turn a man down for things that are over and done with—that he's sorry for and ashamed of—do you know what you drive a man to! What do you think's going to become of me if you throw me over!"
He reached out his hands to her in real agony. "Vivian! I love you! I can't live without you! I can't be good without you! And you love me a little—don't you?"
She did. She could not deny it. She loved to shut her eyes to the future, to forgive the past, to come to those outstretched arms and bury everything beneath that one overwhelming phrase—"I love