By a roundabout road of self-surrender she had come to the same
destination that she might have reached by the straight path of
self-indulgence. She was perilously near to resolving that she had
been a fool not to have taken happiness, physical happiness, first.
A grand red passion seemed so much more beautiful than a petty blue
asceticism.
When she got home from the will-making session with McNiven she
began to go over her papers and close the books of her years.
She attacked old heaps of bundles of her husband's letters and
telegrams, and burned them with difficulty in her fireplace.
She felt no temptation to glance over them, though her lip curled
in a grimace of sardonic disgust to consider how much Peter Cheever
had been to her and how little he was to her now. The first parcels
she burned were addressed to "Miss Charity Coe." How far off it
seemed since she had been called "Miss"!
She had been a girl when Cheever's written and spoken words inflamed
her. They blazed now as she had blazed. Into that holocaust had gone
her youth, her illusions, her virginity, her bridehood, her wifely
trust. And all that was left was a black char.
She came upon letters from Jim Dyckman, also, a few. She flung them
into the fire with the rest. He had had nothing from her except
friendship and girlish romance and a grass-widow's belated affection.
Crimson thoughts stole through her dark heart like the lithe blazes
interlacing the letters; she wondered if she would have done better
to have followed desire and taken love instead of solitude.
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