She told of the Mary and the Marie, and of the dual nature
within me. (As if I didn't know about that!) But she told me much that
I did not know, and she made things much clearer to me, until I saw--
You can see things so much more clearly when you stand off at a
distance like this, you know, than you can when you are close to them!
She broke down and cried when she spoke of the divorce, and of the
influence it had upon me, and of the false idea of marriage it gave
me. She said it was the worst kind of thing for me--the sort of life I
had to live. She said I grew pert and precocious and worldly-wise, and
full of servants' talk and ideas. She even spoke of that night at the
little cafe table when I gloried in the sparkle and spangles and told
her that now we were seeing life--real life. And of how shocked she
was, and of how she saw then what this thing was doing to me. But it
was too late.
She told more, much more, about the later years, and the
reconciliation; then, some way, she brought things around to Jerry and
me. Her face flushed up then, and she didn't meet my eyes. She looked
down at her sewing. She was very busy turning a hem _just so_.
She said there had been a time, once, when she had worried a little
about Jerry and me, for fear we would--separate.
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