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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Forsaking All Others Part 4</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">WAYNE was looking near and far<br>After the theatre to find his car.<br>He had taken his wife to the play that night; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Broadway was glittering hard and bright<br>With every sort of electric light<br>Green and scarlet and diamond-white; <br>And moving letters against the sky<br>Told you exactly the reason why<br>This or that was the thing to buy.<br>And suddenly there at his side was Nell<br>Vainly seeking her car as well<br>They talked. for a moment... of meeting again... <br>And how were Edward and Ruth, and then<br>'I wonder,' said Nell, 'if you ever see<br>My lovely friend...' 'You mean,' said he,<br>'That blue-eyed lady I once sat next.. '<br>'Exactly,' said Nellie. 'I feel so vexed<br>With Lee. I haven't seen her this season,<br>And between you and me, I know the reason.'<br>'Do you indeed? ' said Wayne.'Oh, yes,'<br>Nell answered. 'I know... at least I guess. <br>When a woman like that whom I've seen so much<br>All of a sudden drops out of touch,<br>Is always busy and never can<br>Spare you a moment, it means a MAN.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Wayne did not smile. 'I am sure you are <br>Right,' he said. 'Do you go so far<br>In the magic art as to tell us who<br>The man may be? ' 'I certainly do,'<br>Said Nell. 'It's that handsome young romantic<br>Doctor who's driving the ladies frantic,<br>So that they flock to be cured in shoals<br>And talk of nothing but sex and souls,<br>And self-expression, and physical passion.. <br>Of course, no wonder the man's the fashion.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Does Mrs. Kent flock? ' 'Oh, no, I meant <br>They've called him in to take care of Kent.<br>Imagine the long deep conversations,<br>The tears, the intimate revelations...<br>I wish to all ladies, lonely and sad,<br>Tied to a husband hopelessly mad<br>A handsome psychiatrist... good or bad. <br>Oh, there's my car,' and so with a gay <br>Good night to Wayne she was driven away.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">People will come for miles, they say, <br>To see a man burnt at the stake, yet none<br>Turned in that crowd to look at one<br>Standing quietly burning there,<br>Suffering more than a man can bear, <br>Consumed with hideous inner fire,<br>Believing his love a cheat and a liar... <br>Believing the moment that Nell had spoken, <br>For that day of all days Lee had broken<br>A date... at the time he had thought it queer, <br>And now, by God, it was perfectly clear, <br>Perfectly clear, no doubt whatever...<br>A doctor, handsome and young and clever, <br>With all this rotten erotic learning....</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Strange indeed that no head was turning <br>To watch this gentleman quietly burning, <br>In a trance of pain he heard Ruth say: <br>'Well, dear, what did you think of that play? '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'HOW could you think such a thing? '<br>'Try to forgive if you can.'<br>'Spoiling our beautiful Spring! '<br>'Well, I am only a man.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'I will forgive, if I can.'<br>'Jealousy made me insane.'<br>'I never spoke to the man.'<br>'I'll never doubt you again.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Jealousy made you insane.'<br>'Lee, you have much to forgive.'<br>'Oh, never doubt me again.'<br>'Never as long as I live.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Jim, I have much to forgive.'<br>'Yes, but I've suffered like hell.'<br>'Trust me as long as you live.'<br>'Dearest, I love you too well.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Poor darling, going through hell.'<br>'Spoiling our beautiful Spring.'<br>'I also love you too well.'<br>'How could I think such a thing? '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">LOVERS after a quarrel say to each other lightly:<br>'Dear, we are closer than ever: I love you better by far; <br>After the rainstorm is over, the sun shines even more brightly...'<br>Poor pitiful lovers, trying to hide the unsightly<br>Stain on the surface of love... the ineffaceable scar.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">THE Spring was over, and Summer far advanced,<br>Lee spent many a hidden week in town,<br>Days long and enchanted, and nights entranced,<br>But one thought would not down:</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Is he content with this snatched and broken life? '<br>She thought, 'when we might be free? <br>He cannot love that dowdy middle-aged wife.<br>Does he really love me? '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She was not burnt by jealousy sudden and hot,<br>But poisoned and chilled that he would not break<br>A meagre tie to a wife she knew he could not<br>Love, - yet would not forsake.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">One night at her window, looking over the Park, <br>With his strong hand on her shoulder prest, <br>And a thunder-cloud rolling up out of the dark,<br>Rolling out of the West,</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suddenly she heard herself quoting Macbeth:<br>' 'To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.' '<br>He answered after a pause on a long-drawn breath:<br>'Safety is not for us.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V<br>AND from that moment Lee began - not nagging,<br>She was too wise for that - but she began<br>A secret steady pull, a silent dragging<br>To break the other tie that bound this man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And she would brood, injured, remote, self-centred<br>At any mention that he had a wife; <br>And something chill and faintly hostile entered<br>The magic circle of this hidden life.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O lovers, those legitimately united<br>In holy wedlock, and less happy, those<br>Whose troth may never openly be plighted<br>(Less happy did I say? Alas, who knows?) </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But lovers all, beware, and know the strongest<br>Of wills may make a strong antagonist:<br>And that love will not always linger longest<br>With those who hold it in too clenched a fist.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">YET on the whole they were happy, as day by day<br>The long mysterious Summer passed away.<br>None guessed their secret - except far off on a shady <br>Lawn by the coast of Maine, a middle-aged lady <br>Spending a quiet Summer almost alone<br>In a great Victorian house of dark gray stone, <br>Knew as she sat and stared at the cold Maine ocean <br>Every event, every phase, every emotion<br>Of that great romance. She knew, none better, <br>Not by a chance or slip, or anonymous letter,<br>Not through gossip by any tattler carried,<br>But because she perfectly knew the man she had married.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VII</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'DO not go home for Sunday,<br>Darling,' Lee's letter said.<br>'How I hate Friday to Monday! <br>Stay with me here, instead.<br>Life is so short, and one day<br>Soon, we shall both be dead.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'The curse of love like ours<br>Is that we seem to be<br>Always cut short by powers<br>Stronger than you and me.<br>But if you stayed-what hours,<br>Glorious, alone and free'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VIII</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">RUTH in her quiet garden beside the sea <br>Thinking, 'To-morrow at this time Jim will be <br>Here at my side. It's something to be a wife - <br>The background dull and assured of everyday life. <br>He must come home, whether he wants to or not, <br>To me, to me... All other women must plot, <br>Arrange, manoeuver to see him...'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And then behind her <br>She heard the steps of a servant coming to find her: <br>A footman stood with a telegram held on a tray: <br>'Terribly sorry I cannot get away<br>This week-end. Better luck next. Love. Jim.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She turned her head to the footman, and said to him,<br>'Say Mr. Wayne will not be here to-morrow.'<br>And the man withdrew and left her alone with her sorrow.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The sun went down behind the great blue hill; <br>And she sat there alone in her garden, perfectly still, <br>Watching the wraiths of fog blow in like smoke, <br>And her heart as she sat there gently and quietly broke.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IX</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">AN August Sunday in town, <br>The Park all sere and brown, <br>The noise of wheels died down.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Faint tepid breezes wake <br>Now and again, and make <br>Lee's slatted curtains shake.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now and again in the street <br>The sound of passing feet,<br>And church bells, faint and sweet.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Faint bells that ought to mean <br>A village spire seen<br>Across a meadow green.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Faint bells... Wayne's early youth.... <br>Going to church... in truth<br>Going to church with Ruth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Faint bells, and Lee cries, 'Oh, <br>How I should like to know <br>Why bells depress me so! '</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">X</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">BEFORE the skulls of Primitive Man,<br>Lee stood and thought: 'Are we part of a plan <br>Of Nature's; or are we just a sort<br>Of Cosmic Coincidence - a sport<br>Of God - or worse, a sport of chance<br>Or of Ether - Nature's great romance? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'How queer it would be, if it turned out we<br>Were merely eddies - Jim and me<br>Meaningless eddies in ether swirled<br>In and out of a meaningless world.<br>Well, if we are it's nice to think<br>We've had some moments upon the brink <br>Of dissolution - of absolute chaos<br>Moments of joy that well repay us.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And she paused to note that her fellow eddy <br>Was fifteen minutes late already.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Waiting she wandered from floor to floor,<br>Every instant becoming more<br>Uneasy, and going back to the door,<br>Where Wayne ought to have been at exactly four.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She went from the skulls of Primitive Man<br>To the mystic temples of Yucatan,<br>Or studied gray elephants, vast and haughty, <br>But with eyes like pigs' eyes, shrewd and naughty, <br>Flamingoes of beautiful coral pink<br>The ancestry of the missing link<br>But in between she was always hurrying<br>Back to the doorway, wondering, worrying - <br>And then she saw with a horrid sinking<br>Of heart, it was five! And she went home thinking, <br>'Something has happened - he's been struck<br>By a ruthless, rollicking, rumbling truck,<br>Or crushed by a taxi, and now is lying<br>In some hospital ward - unknown and dying - <br>Or if they knew would they send in truth<br>For me? Oh, no, they would send for Ruth.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And hurrying fast as the laws enable, <br>She found a telegram on her table, <br>Signed as usual, 'J. H. Wayne:'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Ruth has pneumonia alone in Maine, <br>Of course I am taking the very first train. <br>Sorry to miss you before I go.<br>When I know my plans, I'll let you know.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342132" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The first emotion felt by Lee<br>Was pure and perfect relief that he<br>Was safe. And then she felt the force<br>Of that cruel, domestic calm 'of course.'<br>And then undeniably into her head<br>Came the thought unbidden: - 'If Ruth were dead - '<br>And standing alone: 'Poor thing,' she said</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Alice+Duer+Miller">Alice Duer Miller</a></strong></div>