Had it really happened? Was it a dream? Something should be done about dreams like that. You should not even dream that you were deceiving your husband or betraying your friend or planning to abandon your children. But it was not a dream. If it were a dream, she would be lying beside Stephen in her bed on the sleeping-porch. No—it had happened. It had irrevocably happened. The long path into which she had turned at the moment that she had looked into Jimmy’s eyes on the threshold of the Greenwich Village flat had come to its perhaps inevitable ending. She loved Jimmy. She had, incredibly, told him so. The telling had changed everything. It had changed Jimmy. It had changed herself, most of all. It had changed everything, Jane saw clearly in the light of the April dawn, but the most essential facts of the situation. You did not deceive your husband—you did not betray your friend—you did not abandon your children.
Yet she had promised Jimmy only four short hours ago, on the bench beneath the apple tree, to do all those things. She had promised him, just before parting. Jane closed her eyes to shut out the awful clarity of the April dawn, to shut out the familiar walls of the bedroom, to shut out the serried ranks of thoughts that clustered about her bed. It was no use—the thoughts were still there, crowding behind her eyelids. They would not be denied—battering, besieging thoughts. No feeling left, curiously enough, or almost none, to combat them. Only an incredulous bruised memory of feeling—feeling so briefly experienced, to be forever forsworn.
Of course she would forswear it. She had been mad in the garden. Moon-mad. Man-mad. She had been everything that was impossible and undefendable. She had not been Jane Carver or little Jane Ward. She had been some incredible changeling. But she was Jane Carver now, and Jane Ward, too. Little Jane Ward, who had been brought up on Pine Street by a Victorian family to try to be a good girl and mind her parents. Jane Carver, who had behind her the strength of fifteen incorruptible years of honest living as Stephen’s wife. Of course she would forswear the feeling. She would tell Jimmy that morning.
Jimmy. At the memory of Jimmy the serried ranks of thoughts fell back a little. A sudden wave of emotion reminded her that feeling was not so easily forsworn. Jimmy’s face in the moonlight—his eyes—his lips—his arms about her body. Suddenly Jane heard Stephen stirring on the sleeping-porch. It was seven o’clock, then. The day had begun. This day in which thoughts must give birth to action. This day in which feeling must be forsworn. Stephen, struggling into his bathrobe, appeared on tiptoe at the door to the sleeping-porch. He looked a little sleepy, but very cheerful.
“Hello,” he said, “you awake? Why did you sleep in here?”
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” said Jane. She was amazed at the casual tone she managed to achieve. “I sat out very late with Jimmy in the garden.”
“I went up early,” said Stephen, “just as soon as I finished with the paper. Coming down to breakfast?”
“No,” said Jane. “Ask Sarah to bring up a tray.”
Jane felt she could not face a Lakewood family breakfast. Whatever life demanded of her on this dreadful day, it did not demand that she should sit behind her coffee tray, surrounded by her children, and pour out Jimmy’s coffee under Stephen’s unconscious eye. She would wait in her room until Stephen had gone to the train, until the children had left for school. Then she would go down and tell Jimmy that she had been mad in the garden.
Two hours later, Jane opened her bedroom door and walked down the staircase. No Jimmy in the hall. She entered the living-room and saw him standing by the terrace doors, gazing out at the apple tree. He wheeled quickly around at the sound of her step on the threshold. Jimmy looked tired. Jimmy looked worn. But Jimmy looked terribly happy. Jane smiled tremulously.
“Jimmy—” she said, still standing in the doorway.
“Don’t say it!” cried Jimmy. “I know just how you feel. I know just how you’ve reacted. Don’t say it, Jane! Give yourself time to—to get used to it.”
“I am used to it,” said Jane pitifully. “I’m terribly used to it. I’ve been thinking for hours.”
“I know what you’ve been thinking!” cried Jimmy. He walked quickly over to her and caught her hand in his. “It was inevitable, Jane, that you’d think those thoughts. Don’t—don’t let them trouble you, Jane. I knew how it would be.”
“You knew how it would be?” faltered Jane.
“I even knew you wouldn’t come down to breakfast. In point of fact, I didn’t come down to breakfast myself In spite of all the many things I’ve done, Jane, in and out of camp meetings, I can’t say that I ever planned to run off with the wife of a friend before. I didn’t seem to care much about meeting Stephen myself, this morning. I didn’t seem to care much about sharing his eggs and bacon.”
“You haven’t had any breakfast?” said Jane stupidly. Jimmy shock his head. “I’ll ring for a tray.” She moved to the bell by the chimneypiece. Jimmy followed her across the room.
“But, Jane—” he said.
“Yes,” said Jane, her hand on the
