Dr. Adriaan Part 50

She let herself be dragged along and turned down the lonely, green road.

She seemed to surrender feebly to his wishes; and she became aware that she was in a profound state of melancholy, a hesitation of not knowing things, of wavering, of feeling unhappy.

"Everything could have been so different," she said, almost crying.

"What do you mean? When?"

"If Addie...."

"If he what?"

"I don't know," she said. "I'm tired of thinking about it. It is not his fault."

"No, it's your fault."

"My fault?"

"Yes! Nothing would keep you from marrying him.... And I loved you."

"You? But you never asked me!"

"But you knew that I loved you. Yes, everything could have been different, oh, everything could have been so very different!"

She suddenly began to cry.

"Tilly!"

"Oh," she said, sobbing, "don't let us talk like this! Let's go to the tennis-club."

"No, no, I don't want to."

She turned.

"Tilly...."

"No, I won't go any farther. I'm going to the club. It'll distract me ... to play tennis."

She turned back; he followed her.

"Tilly, you're so unstrung. If you were a little calmer, I should tell you...."

"What?"

"That I can't bear to see you unhappy. Oh, I love you, I love you! Let us go away ... together."

"Go away? Where?"

"With each other. I love you, I love you, I have always loved you."

She stopped with a start:

"You're mad!"

"Why?"

"To suggest such a thing," she said, with a scornful laugh. "You're mad.

You think that I...."

"Want to be unhappy all your life?"

"That I should consent to run away with you. I love my husband ... and my children ... and you imagine...."

"Yes," he said, "it was mad of me to suggest it. You love your husband, not me. You never allow me anything, not anything."

"Nothing ... at all?" she asked, scornfully.

"Nothing ... that counts," he retorted, hoa.r.s.ely, roughly.

She shrugged her shoulders:

"You men always want ... that. Our happiness does not always consist ...

of that."

"No, but ... if you loved me ... entirely...."

"Johan!" she cried.

They crossed the bridge and entered the Woods.

"If you ever dare speak to me like that again...."

"Very well, I won't."

"But you're always doing it.... We'd better not see each other at all."

"Not see each other?"

"No."

"I won't have that," he said. "I won't have that either."

"And if I insist?"

"Even so."

"You don't make me any happier by talking like that; you make me even unhappier than I am."

"Oh, Tilly, I can't bear to see you unhappy!... What are we to do, what are we to do?"

"I don't know," she said, in a dead voice.