My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along the path
that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the crossing
of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the glimpse
of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was muttering
something--I listened to myself. It was: "Mulholland, Mrs. Mulholland and
the four little Mulhollands." And I felt like laughing aloud, such a joke
was it that I should be envying a policeman his potato patch and his fat
wife and his four brats, and that he should be in a position to pity me.
You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my mind.
That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt there are
men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away their lives
over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people who will say that,
because I did not shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or fly to a desert or
pose in the crowded places of the world as the last scene of a tragedy,
I therefore cared little about her. I offer them this suggestion: A man
strong enough to give a love worth a woman's while is strong enough to live
on without her when he finds he may not live with her.
Pages:
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409