"You want me to give it up."
"Well"--he stressed a shrug--"one would think you'd seen enough of this
sort of thing to satisfy even your curiosity."
"You think I had no other motive?"
"Plus gratification of your vanity--the inevitable factor in every human
equation."
"You don't believe my work means anything to me for its own sake?"
"Are you asking me to believe _you_ consider this a life worth while? Or
that any success it may purchase is worth the sacrifice?"
"What sacrifice, pray?"
"Of the woman you might yet be, if you'd give up this nonsense."
"I think you must mean the woman I might have been before your conduct
killed her in me!"
Bel made a wry face as he stooped to pick up his motor-coat. "This
conversation is degenerating into a wrangle in which I have the
traditional chance a snowball has in the place where motion-pictures
were spawned. A husband, even a deserted one, is always in the wrong....
Mind lending me a hand, Linda? Can't quite manage this with one arm."
At once angrily and gently Lucinda draped the motor-coat over his
shoulders. "Generalizing on the hardships of husbands," she suggested
sweetly, "is hardly an excuse for making it your specialty to be always
in the wrong."
"I feel that, you know." Bel replied with lips that twitched--"feel it
like everything.... I'm to understand, then, my wishes mean nothing to
you?"
Lucinda gave a little, silent laugh, and in silence for a moment gazed
on Bellamy, her eyes unreadable. Nor was there the hostility he had
expected in the tone in which she asked: "Have you any reason to
advance, why your wishes should influence me?"
"If you know of none, Linda--no."
"I know of nothing that counterweighs the persecution you've been
subjecting me to, ever since you found out where I was hiding from
you--persecution that ended last night in a tragedy. I can't forget
that, if you hadn't bribed that unfortunate girl to come back----"
"If I hadn't!" Bel interrupted--"and God knows I regret what came of
that as bitterly as anybody!--if I hadn't brought Nelly back here, you
might still be playing fast and loose with Summerlad's ambition to make
you his mistress. Got anything to say to that? You know now, at least,
he never intended anything else. And yet, if looks could kill, you'd
strike me dead where I stand for having presumed to be as wise in
advance as you've been made by the event! And because I made the mistake
of trying to stage-manage things so you would presently find out for
yourself what a rotter you were throwing yourself away on, instead of
chancing your deeper hatred by telling you outright what every other
soul in Hollywood knew--running the risk of seeing you go straight to
his arms to prove your indifference to me--because of that error of
judgment you'll see me damned before you'll give up a mode of life for
which you're about as well fitted as--as I am for that of the Kingdom of
Heaven!"
"You forget, what I don't, Bel," Lucinda said slowly, "that it was you
who made the mode of life with which I was content impossible for me. If
this life I've taken up here is in some sense a makeshift, it's all I've
got to take the place of all I had. And now you'd rob me even of it! And
one thing more you forget: If I should give in to your wishes and leave
Hollywood today, I would only be doing what you say you want to prevent,
confessing by flight that my only real interest in my picture work was
my greater interest in Lynn Summerlad. For that reason alone--and not,
as you believe, to spite you--I've got to and I'm going to go on to the
end of this present production at least. After that ... I don't
know...."
Discountenanced, "I hadn't thought of that," Bel owned squarely. "You
may be right...."
"I am; but even if I weren't, it wouldn't be any use your trying to
force me to forego my chance at a career in pictures just to get rid of
you. Believe me, Bel, it's no good. Give it up, give up this producing
blind--I know it's only a blind--and go back where you belong. And leave
me to do my best with what I have--with what you've left of my
happiness. And remember you have my faithful promise to set you free as
soon as the courts will grant me a divorce."
"That's your last word, Linda?"
"My last word to you, Bel--I hope."
He hesitated, the muscles of his face working beneath its day-old
stubble; and for a moment, reading truly or mistakenly the look in his
eyes, from which all anger had died out, Lucinda was in deadly fear
lest he were on the verge of making one last appeal in another key, one
which she was, in that time of emotions, ill-prepared to deal with.
Then flinging out his hand in the salute of the vanquished, Bel bowed
and, whirling on a heel, left her--left Lucinda for once at a loss,
intuition inextricably hobbled by a mat of doubts.