Sisters

Excerpt: ...appeal to Alix! Peter said. She doesn't care what she does or where she lives. She fraternized with every old maid school teacher on the steamer, and a booze-fiend, and a woman whose husband was a native of Borneo; and she would pick out the filthiest lairs in Honolulu and ask me if it wouldn't be fun to live there! They all laughed; then Peter added, seriously: I'll go this far, Cherry. Lloyd married you too young. Oh, far too young! she agreed, quickly. The thing I-I can't think of, she said, is how young I was-only a little girl. I knew nothing; I wasn't ready to be anybody's wife! Something in the poignant sorrow of her tone went straight to their hearts, and for the first time Peter had an idea of the real suffering she had borne. Alix's mouth was rather firmly shut, her eyes a little narrowed, her face rather sad, as she looked into the fire. If I had a child, even, or if Martin needed me, Cherry said, then it might be different! But I'm only a burden to him-- His letter doesn't sound as if he thought of you as a burden, Alix suggested, mildly. Ah, well, the minute I leave him he has a different tone, Cherry explained, and Peter said, with a glance almost of surprise at his wife: It's an awfully difficult position for a woman of any pride, dear! Alix, kneeling to adjust the fire, as she was constantly tempted to do, met his look, and laid a soot-streaked hand on his knee. Pete, dearest, of course it is! But- and Alix looked doubtfully from one to the other-but divorce is a hateful thing! she added, shaking her head, it-it never seems to me justifiable! Divorce is an institution, Peter said. You may not like it any more than you like prisons or mad-houses; it has its uses. People get divorces every day! Cherry added. Isn't divorce better than living along in marriage-without love? Oh, love! Alix said, scornfully. Love is just another name for passion and selfishness and laziness, half the...