to struggle on, but I can't. Just a few days of it, just a few
weeks of it make me--make me a different woman! I get nervous, I
get hysterical, I don't sleep! I have no individuality, Peter, I
have no personality! As for my dignity--my privacy--"

Her face was scarlet, and for a moment she stopped speaking.

"Just tell me an alternative!" she said, after awhile. "It CAN'T
be that there is no other life for me than going back. Peter, I'm
only twenty-four!"

"I know you are," he said, with a brief nod.

"Why, everyone has some alternative," Cherry pleaded. "It can't be
that marriage is the only--the only irrevocable thing! If you had
a partner that you couldn't go on with, you could come to SOME
agreement! You could make a sacrifice, but somehow you could end
the association! Peter," she said, earnestly, "when I think of
marketing again--six chops and soup-meat and butter and baking
powder--I feel sick! When I think of unpacking the things I've
washed and dusted for five years--the glass berry bowl that
somebody gave us, and the eleven silver tea-spoons--I can't bear
it!"

"You don't love him!" Peter said.

"I don't hate him," she answered quickly. "Indeed I don't. And it
isn't just the place and the life, Peter! I could be happy in two
rooms--somewhere--anywhere--But not--with HIM. Oh, Peter, if I
hadn't done it--if I hadn't done it!" And Cherry knotted her