Alpha Book

. . And then--and then--"
"_He_ came," said Selwyn very quietly. "Go on."
But she had nothing more to say.
"Alixe!"
She shook her head, closing her eyes.
"Little girl!--oh, little girl!" he said softly, the old familiar phrase
finding its own way to his lips--and she trembled slightly; "was there
no other way but that? Had marriage made the world such a living hell
for you that there was no other way but _that_?"
"Phil, I helped to make it a hell."
"Yes--because I was pitiably inadequate to design anything better for
us. I didn't know how. I didn't understand. I, the architect of our
future--failed."
"It was worse than that, Phil; we"--she looked blindly at him--"we had
yet to learn what love might be. We did not know. . . . If we could have
waited--only waited!--perhaps--because there _were_ moments--" She
flushed crimson.
"I could not make you love me," he repeated; "I did not know how."
"Because you yourself had not learned how. But--at times--now looking
back to it--I think--I think we were very near to it--at moments.


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