The evening after the letter was mailed, she got up and dressed herself,
trembling with weakness, hardly able to stand, but quite self-possessed.
She didn’t feel the slightest emotion at the prospect of seeing Vincent
again--nothing but a dogged resolution to make him give her money.
She attempted no attitude, made no plan of what she would say to him,
because she knew now how helpless she was in his hands. _He_ would
direct the interview; _he_ would give the key-note; it would all depend
upon his mood. She couldn’t influence him. She didn’t even take pains
with her appearance, for she knew that it didn’t lie with her to move
him. It depended upon the condition of his own mysterious soul.
She had hardly expected him so soon. He came that same evening, but,
from the very sound of his footsteps as he followed her along the hall
to the tiny parlour, she could feel that he was sullen and reluctant,
and her heart sank.
"Oh, if only I didn’t have to bother with him!" she thought. "If only I
didn’t have to see him ever again! And I’ve got to be nice to him and
ask him for money!"
They entered the parlour, and sat down in silence.
"Angelica!" he said abruptly, with a frown. "Why did you leave me?"
"I wanted to----”
"I was amazed. I was _shocked_. You behaved----” He hesitated for a
moment, then went on severely: "You behaved like a light woman. I
thought you were faithful and constant and sincere; and then, after _one
week_----”
"But what kind of a week was it?" cried Angelica.
"I’m not a rich man, but I did the best I could for you."
"You know what I mean! In that awful little road-house, with you
shutting yourself up in the bedroom all the time and leaving me there
alone for all those men to laugh at!"
"I had to write."
"You hadn’t any business to write. You might have thought a little bit
how I’d feel. If you couldn’t pay any attention to me, you
shouldn’t----”
"Did you bring me here to reproach me?" he demanded. "Because if you
did, I’ve had enough."
"No, I didn’t mean to scold you," she answered, hurriedly, recalled to
the necessity for placating him. "No--I just wanted to see you."
Her face, which had become so pinched, so colourless, was covered with a
vivid flush. The conciliatory words almost stuck in her throat; but
apparently Vincent didn’t observe her emotion.
"I’m not disposed to endure much more from you--upon my word, I’m not!"
he went on. "The way you went off, simply leaving me a note to say that
you thought you’d go home--making a fool of me! I was naïve enough to
imagine we were to spend our lives together. I thought we’d stay for a
month or so in that beautiful little mountain inn, fishing, tramping,
reading, talking----”
"You hardly spoke to me all day long. I had to sit down-stairs in the
dining-room with those fishermen."
"How was I to know that you had no resources? Besides, it was rainy, and
we couldn’t have gone out, anyway; but the very day you left the weather
cleared. I was really disgusted with you, Angelica. You behaved
abominably!"
"Well, Vincent," she said, "you’ll have to excuse that, and be a good
friend to me, because I need some money."
He jumped to his feet.
"You’re shameless!" he said. "I’m shocked!"
"No--listen! There’s going to be a baby!" she cried, in desperation.
He was a little taken aback for a moment. He gave a hasty glance at her
poor desperate young face, and then looked away.
"There!" he said, taking a leather wallet out of his pocket and
throwing it on the table. "Take it! It’s all I’ve got. My God, you can’t
get the better of a woman! They have it all their own way in this world.
They make us pay, and pay dear, for their follies!"
Angelica stared at him, astounded.
"_I’m_ supposed to be the guilty one," he went on. "_I’m_ the one who’s
held responsible--why, the good Lord only knows. _I’m_ the one to pay!"
"As for _me_," said Angelica, "it’s just a picnic, isn’t it?"
"You’re fulfilling your natural destiny--at my expense."
"Oh!" she cried. "I wish to God I could throw the money back in your
face, Vincent!"
"But you won’t. And now that you’ve got all that you can out of me, I
suppose I can go?"
But Angelica was weak; she couldn’t endure it.
"Do you mean that you’re not even sorry?" she cried. "Can’t you think
what this means to me--what’s going to become of me? Oh, Vincent, just
_think_ what’s before me!"
"Just what always was before you. You’re bad, my girl, through and
through. You couldn’t have ended any other way. No decency, no
self-restraint. I don’t suppose I was the first man----”
"Oh, don’t!" she cried. "Don’t! You can’t realize--oh, Vincent!"
"And as for _this_, it isn’t the first time such a thing has happened in
the world. Even a young girl brought up in sheltered luxury, like you,
must have heard of such things. In fact, my dear, you must have known
quite as well as I what the consequences of our adventure might be. If
you say you didn’t, you’re lying."
She put out one hand in a sort of mute and feeble protest.
"But I didn’t think--you’d change----” Her voice faltered; she found it
almost impossible to go on. "I thought--that you--felt like I did."
"So I did," he answered. "So I do--just the same as you. Our impulses,
our reasons for going off together, were exactly the same, only I’m
honest about it and you’re not. You pretend to be heart-broken because I
don’t care for you any longer, when, as a matter of fact, you don’t care
a bit more for me. You’re an utter hypocrite!"
She was confused and crushed by his words. He was taking away from her
her very last support--her conviction that she had been misled, wronged,
sinned against. Somehow he was putting her in the wrong. She couldn’t
deny that she had gone away with him of her own free will; and yet she
knew that it _hadn’t_ been her own free will. She didn’t deny her own
guilt, but she knew that his was far greater.
"I’m not a hypocrite," she said.
"Then you’re a fool. No--we’ve done with each other, Angelica. It’s over
for both of us."
"But it isn’t over for me!" she cried. Her heart was flaming with
resentment against the hellish injustice of it--that she should have all
the suffering, all the punishment. "Just _think_ of it!" she cried.
"Can’t you realize, Vincent, how dreadful it is for me?"
"No, I can’t realize. I’m not a woman, and I don’t pretend to understand
them and their fine feelings. I can’t understand or sympathize with this
cowardly whining over physical effects which are known to every one. Did
you want anything else from me, except money, Angelica?"
"Yes, I do!" she answered. "I do want something else, and I’ll get it,
too. I want to make you suffer, and I will, too!"
"Oh, I see--the wronged woman with the baby in her arms! Well, Angelica,
go ahead! Do your worst. I don’t think you can hurt me very much."
He looked down at her with a gay, mocking smile, he put on his hat, and
was gone.
Angelica went back to her mother with the wallet.
"Well!" she began. "Here’s----” But she broke down and began to cry
wildly.
"Oh, mommer! Mommer! I can’t bear this! I _can’t_ be treated like this!
Oh, mommer, not _me_! Not _me_! It can’t be true!"
Her mother was glad when she wept. She stroked Angelica’s head in
silence, pleased to see her softened, even humbled, happy to see that
ferocious hardness gone; not suspecting that that ferocity and that
hardness were the very best of Angelica, the very spirit of her. When
she wept like this, she was submerged, perishing, _going under_. With a
frightful effort she saved herself and rose above these bitter waters.
"He’ll _pay_, all right!" she said, looking up with an odd, horrible
grin. "You watch!"
"Don’t talk so, my deary!"
"Here--take it! Let’s see how much we’ve got to go on with," she
interrupted, pushing the wallet across the table. "He’s always saying he
hasn’t got a cent, but I notice he always finds plenty for anything he
wants. God knows where he gets it, but he does."
Her mother counted what was in the purse, and turned to Angelica with a
look of amazement.
"Why, Angie! There’s only four dollars here!"
Angelica laughed.
"It’s all we’ll get, anyway, mommer," she said. "It’ll have to do."