I've no patience with you;
and if you think that this nonsense of yours shuts the door in Monty
Bell's face, you are wholly mistaken.
"While we are upon this subject of divorce that seems to shock you so, I
may as well tell you what you will not see for yourself, and your father
appears to have been too mealy-mouthed to explain,--we have agreed to
separate. No need of your getting tragic, there are no public
recriminations on either side, no vulgar infidelity or common
quarrelling, everything quite amicable, I assure you. Simply we find our
tastes totally different, and have done so for several years. Mr.
Latham's ambitions are wholly financial, mine are social. He repelled and
ignored my best friends, and as we are in every way independent of each
other, he has been wise enough to avoid possible and annoying
complications by standing out of my way and making it easy for me to
legalize the arrangement and readjust myself completely to new
conditions."
"But what of Carthy and me?" gasped Sylvia, in a voice so choked and
hollow that the older woman hesitated, but for a single instant only.
"Have neither you nor father thought of us? Where do we belong? Where is
our home? Can people who have once loved each other forget their children
and throw them off so? Does God allow it? You must have cared for father
once, for I remember when I was a little girl you told me that you called
me Sylvia, to have my name as nearly like father's--Sylvester--as
possible.
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