And he shrank from it as from the pit.
"I don't see why you say that," Milly replied. "Most painters live in
the city part of the year. There's ---- and ----"
She argued the matter with him long into the night, obstinately refusing
to see the fatality of the choice they were making.
"We can get rid of the apartment any time, if we don't want it," she
said, and quoted Hazel Fredericks.
They came nearer to seeing into each other's souls that night than ever
before or ever again. They saw that their inmost interests were
antagonistic and must always remain so for all the active, creative
years of their lives, and the best they could do, for the sake of their
dead ideals, much more for the sake of the living child, was decently to
compromise between their respective egotisms and thus "live and let
live."
"If I had married a plain business man," Milly let fall in the heat of
the argument, revealing in that phrase the knowledge she had arrived at
of her mistake, "it would have been different."
Bragdon was not sure of that, but he was sure that in so far as he could
he must supply for her the things that "plain business man" could have
given her. Or they must part--they even looked into that gulf, from
which both shrank back. At the end Milly said:--
"If you don't think it's best, don't do it. You must do what you think
is best for your career.
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