Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1938-07-01
CHAPTER 10


we get visas, we might go to Russia.
I'd like to see the Soviets."
How nearly he had come to say
ing: "Then you might let me take
you in my arms and try to be hap
py." But not to her unhappy eyes
could he say that.
GAIL right, let's go to Russia"
And three days later they started.
BY implicit agreement they did not
speak again of Felicia or of Keith in
those days when she was conscious
that he was waiting for some word
she had not spoken, and he was con-
scious that she made trivial jests,
laughed with effort, at his slightest
attempt of gayety, and kept her
thoughts altogether from him.
In that time she was not thinking
of him, but not of herself either, but
of her sisters whole life, from her
first memories of her. E. Of Keith,
in the months that seemed so far "a
way, when he had loved her, and she
had believed he and she would marry
and spend their lives together. Never,
never now.
There were hours when a slow rage
burned in her. Those two she had
SO loved had forgotten her quickly
enough. had betrayed her easily. And
yet her rage was not enduring. AS
they were, they were-more modern
than herself, if to be modern was to
be exigent about ones own desires.
Though she herself had been ext
gent too, for brief time, about
Keith. And Felicia had not been ext
gent through years of her marriage
with Eustace, when he made the best
of things, and never certainly took
advantage before of her Vulnerable
opportunities for adventure, at Eus
tace's expense.
People were not consistent! That
was her first bit of wisdom about peo-
pie in general. From that she pro-
gressed, slowly and painfully, to a
realization that Keith and Felicia
were rather alike in their dispositions,
were reckless, impatient, without be-
lief in anyone very much nor in them
selves at all.
Yet with herself gone from their
lives, she could understand that they
could have found great deal in COM
mon. If she, Denise, had not married
Gilbert, Felicia's loyalty would have
held her from Keith. If she had not
married Gilbert, though Keith quar-
relied with her and they parted, he
would have gone to her sister for con-
ISOLATION, last of all women in New
York.
Even if she had married and still
remained person present in their
days, thought of her might have kept
them from each other. But she had
married, and sailed the day after her
wedding-day. 1t was as definite
punctuation, almost, as if she had died
They could feel justified in ignoring
any possible effect upon her, of their
APPROACH to each other.
In either of their places, she might
have done the same thing. Felicia and
Keith had much more in common than
herself and Felicia and herself and
Keith.
When she was able to say those
two things, much bitterness went
from her. But besides the hurt to her
feeling of self-importance (Which she
could estimate now, and divide from
the hurt to her love for those two),
something else disturbed her: The
feeling that it was unworthy of the
sort of persons she had thought them.
to have a furtive love affair.
If either Keith or Felicia had in
sisted on telling Eustace! Instead,
they had deceived him, APPARENTLY so
blithely. That deceit seemed to over
lay with tarnish all her lifelong affec-
ton for her sister, all her own love
for Keith, the remembrances that she
had so cherished of their moments
of closeness.
Once she thought wildly: perhaps
they deceived me, too. Perhaps they
always cared about each other, and
that's why Felicia wanted me to mar
ry Gilbert and why Keith didn't ever
much want to marry me-" That sus-
picion grew in her
Past Berlin, on the way to Moscow,
she and Gilbert were thrown more
closely than ever before into each
others physical presence. By the
accident of the time of year, and the
approaching May Day celebrations in
Russia, transportation was almost i'm
possible to get. They were Obliged