If you do love him, and have
loved him always, a disappointment would cut you deeper than you know.
Go careful from now on! Don't strain that patched engagement of yours
any further. I've known Philip all my life. I've known him through
boyhood, in college, and since. All men respect him. Where the rest
of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go to his arms with
nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say, 'Edith is my
slogan,' and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of his
love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other man of
us fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a girl, if
she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would have man
believe. It would take a woman with the organism of an ostrich to endure
some of the men here to-night, if she knew them as I do; but Phil is
sound to the core. So this is what I would say to you: first, your
instincts are right in loving him, why not let him feel it in the ways a
woman knows? Second, don't break your engagement again. As men know the
man, any of us would be afraid to the soul. He loves you, yes! He is
long-suffering for you, yes! But men know he has a limit. When the limit
is reached, he will stand fast, and all the powers can't move him. You
don't seem to think it, but you can go too far!"
"Is that all?" laughed Edith Carr sarcastically.
"No, there is one thing more," said Henderson.
Pages:
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342