THE SCOURGING
In the last moments of twilight Ann sat alone in her room, cheeks still
flushed, limbs still trembling at intervals, pulses retaining their
swift measure. She was unstrung, aquiver with strange emotions.
It was not wholly the fright of the afternoon that had provoked her
nerves to this state; it was not alone the emotional surging loosed by
her moment in Bayard's arms, her cheek against his cheek; nor was it
entirely inspired by the fact, growing in portent with each passing
hour, that Bruce had told her his work with Ned Lytton was all but
ended, that within a day or two he was sending her husband to her. It
was a combination of all this, with possibly her husband's impending
return forming a background.
Again and again she saw Bruce as he delivered his message, heard his
even, dogged voice uttering the words. He had waited until they reached
the hotel, he had let Nora leave them and, then, in the sunset quiet,
standing on the steps where she had first seen him, he had refused to
hear her thanks for saving her from bodily hurt, and had broken in:
"It ain't likely I'll be in again for a while, ma'am. Your husband's
about ready to move. I've done all I can; it'd only hurt him to stay on
against his will. Sometime this week, ma'am, he'll be comin'."
And that was Wednesday! She had been struck stupid by his words. She had
heard him no further, though he did say other things; she had watched
him go, unable to call him back.
It relieved Ann not at all to tell herself that it was this for which
she had waited, had worried, had restrained herself throughout these
weeks; that she had come West to find her husband and that she was about
to join him, knowing that he was strengthened, that he had been lifted
up to a physical and mental level where she might guide him, aid him in
the fight which must continue.
That knowledge was no solace. It was that for which she had outwardly
waited, but it was that against which she inwardly recoiled. She
realized this truth now, and conscience cried back that it must not be
so, that she must stifle that feeling of revulsion, that she must
welcome her husband, eagerly, gladly. And it went on to accuse ... that
conscience; it shamed her because she had been held to the breast of
another man; it scorned her because she had drawn herself closer to him
with her own arms; it taunted her bitterly because she could not readily
agree with her older self that in the doing she had sinned, because to
her slowly opening eyes that moment had seemed the most beautiful
interval of her life!
A peculiar difference in the vivacity of her impressions had been
asserting itself. The memory of the runaway had faded. Her picture of
the moment when she strained her body against Bayard's was not so clear
as it had been an hour before, though the thrill, the great joy of it,
still remained to mingle with those other thoughts and emotions which
confused her. The last great impression of the day, though--Bayard's
solemn announcement of his completed task--grew more sharply defined,
more outstanding, more important as the moments passed, because its
eventuality was a thing before which she felt powerless in the face of
her conscience, before which all this other must be forgotten, before
which this new rebellious Ann must give way to the old long-suffering,
submissive wife. She felt as though she had known her moment of beauty
and that it had gone, leaving her not even a sweet memory; for her
grimmer self whispered that that brief span of time had been vile,
unchaste. And yet, in the next moment, her strength had rallied and she
was fighting against the influence of tradition, against blind
precedents.
A knock came on her door and Ann, wondering with a thrill if it could be
Bayard, both troubled and pleased at the possibility, stepped across the
floor to answer it.
"Oh, Nora!" she said in surprise. "Come in,"--when the girl stood still
in the hall, neither offering to speak nor to enter. "Do come in," she
insisted after a pause and the other crossed the threshold, still
without speaking.
"I've been sitting here in the dark thinking about what happened this
afternoon," Ann said, drawing a chair to face hers that was by the
window. "It was all very exciting, wasn't it?"
Nora had followed across the room slowly and Ann felt that the girl's
gaze held on her with unusual steadfastness.
"I guess it's a fortunate thing that Bruce Bayard came along when he
did. I ... I tremble every time I think of the way my horse went down!"
She broke off and laughed nervously.
Nora stood before her, still silent, still eyeing her pointedly.
"Well ... Won't you sit down, Nora?"--confused by the portentous silence
and the staring of the other. "Won't you sit down here?"
Mechanically the girl took her seat and Ann, wondering what this strange
bearing might mean, resumed her own chair. They sat so, facing one
another in the last sunset glow, the one staring stolidly, Ann covering
her embarrassment, her wonder with a forced smile. Gradually, that smile
faded, an uncertainty appeared in Ann's eyes and she broke out:
"Why, what is the matter with you, Nora?"
At that question the girl averted her face and let her hands drop down
over the chair arms with careless laxity.
"Don't you know what it is?" she asked, in her deep, throaty voice,
meeting Ann's inquiring gaze, shifting her eyes quickly, moving her
shoulders with a slight suggestion of defiance.
"Why, no, Nora! You're so queer. Is something troubling you? Can't you
tell me?"
Ann leaned forward solicitously.
The waitress laughed sharply, and lifted a hand to her brow, and shook
her head.
"Don't you know what it is?" she asked again, voice hardening. "Can't
you see? Are you blind? Or are you afraid?
"What'd you come out here for anyhow?" she cried, abruptly accusing, one
hand out in a gesture of challenge, and Ann could see an angry flush
come into her face and her lower lids puff with the emotion.
"Why, Nora...."
"Don't tell me! I know what you come for! You come to look after your
worthless whelp of a man; that's why; an' you stayed to try to take
mine!"--voice weakening as she again turned her face toward the window.
"Why, Nora Brewster ..."
The sharp shake of the girl's arm threw off Ann's hand that had gone out
to grasp it and the rasp in Nora's voice checked the eastern woman's
protest.
"Don't try to tell me anything different! I know! Can't I see? Am I as
blind as you try to make me think you are?"--with another swagger of the
shoulders as she moved in her chair. "Can't I see what's goin' on? Can't
I see you makin' up to him an' eyein' him an' leadin' him on?--You, a
married woman!"
"Nora, stop it!"
With set mouth Ann straightened, her breathing audible.
"I _won't_ stop. You're goin' to hear me through, understand? You're
goin' to know all about it; you're goin' to know what I am an' what he
is an' what's been between us ... what you've been breakin' up. Then, I
guess you won't come in here with your swell eastern ways an' try to
take him.... I guess not!"
She laughed bitterly and Ann could see the baleful glow in her eyes.
"I told you that he brung me here an' put me to work, I guess. Well,
that was so; he did. I'll tell you where he got me." She hitched
forward. "He brung me from th' Fork. You come through there; all you
know 'bout it is that there's a swell hotel there an' it's a junction
point. Well, the's a lot more to know about th' Fork ... or was."
She paused a moment and rubbed her palms together triumphantly, as if
she had long anticipated this moment.
"When I was there, the' wasn't no hotel; the' wasn't nothin' but a
junction an' ... hell itself. 'Twasn't a place with much noise about it,
not so many killin's as some places maybe, but 'twas bad, low down.
"The' was a place there ... Charley Ling's.... 'Twas a Chinese place,
with white women. I was one of 'em."
Ann gasped slightly and drew back, and Nora laughed.
"I thought that'd hurt," she mocked. "I thought you couldn't stand it!
"Charley's was a fine place. Sheep herders come there an' Mexicans an'
sometimes somebody of darker color. We wasn't particular, see? We wasn't
particular, I guess not! Men was white or black or red or yellow or
brown, but their money was all one color....
"The' was dope an' booze an' ... hell.... Charley's was a reg'lar boil
on th' face of God's earth, that's what it was.... He--Bruce Bayard--got
me out of there."
The girl breathed hard and swiftly. Her upper lip was drawn back and her
white teeth gleamed in the semi-darkness as she sat forward in her
chair, flushed, her accusing face thrust forward toward the bewildered,
horrified Ann Lytton.
"He got me there, so you know what I was, what I am. He brung me here,
got me this job, has kept me here ever since,"--with a suggestion of
faltering purpose in her voice. "It's been him ever since; just him.
I'll say that for myself. I've been on th' level with Bruce an' ain't
had nothin' to do with others.
"You see he's mine!"--her voice, which had dropped to a monotone, rose
bitingly again. "He's mine; he's all I got. If 'twasn't for him, I
wouldn't be here. If he quits me, I'll go back to that other. I don't
want to go back; so long as he sticks by me I won't go back. If I leave,
it'll be because I'm drove back....
"That's what you're doin'. You're drivin' me back to Charley's ... or
some place like it...."
She moved from side to side, defiantly, and leaned further forward,
resting her elbows on her knees, staring out into the darkened street
below them.
"You come here, a married woman; you got one man now, an' he don't suit.
So you think you're goin' to take mine. That's big business for a ... a
respectable lady, like yourself, ain't it? Stealin' a man off a woman
like me!"
She laughed shortly, and did not so much as look up as Ann tried to
reply and could not make words frame coherent sentences.
"I've kept still until now, 'cause I ain't proud of my past, 'cause I
thought you, havin' one man, had enough without meddlin' with mine. But
I'm through keepin' my mouth shut now,"--menacingly. "I'm through, I
tell you,"--wiping her hands along her thighs and straightening her
body slowly as she turned a malevolent gaze on the silent Ann. "You're
tryin' to take what belongs to me an' I won't set by an' let you walk
off with him. I'll--
"Why, what'd this town say, if I was to tell 'em you're Ned Lytton's
wife instead of his sister? They all know you've been havin' Bruce come
here to your room; they all think he's your lover. First thing, they'd
fire you out of th' hotel; then, they'd laugh at you as you walked along
th' street! It'd ruin him, too; what with keepin' your man out at his
ranch so's he can see you without trouble!"
Her voice had mounted steadily and, at the last, she rose to her feet,
bending over the bewildered Ann and gesturing heavily with her right arm
while the other was pressed tightly across her chest.
"That's what I come here to tell you to-night!" she cried. "That's what
you know, now. But I want you to know that while I've been bad, as bad
as women get, that I've been open about it; I ain't been no hypocrite; I
ain't passed as a good woman an' ... been bad--"
"Nora, stop this!"
Ann leaped to her feet and confronted the girl, for the moment furious,
combative. They faced one another in the faint light that came through
the windows and before her roused intensity Nora stepped backward,
yielding suddenly, frightened by this show of vigorous indignation, for
she had believed that her accusation would grind the spirit, the pride,
from Ann.
"Why, you-u-u- ..."
Ann's hands clenched and opened convulsively at her sides as she groped
fruitlessly for words.
"You go now, Nora; go away from me! What you have said has been too
contemptible, too base for me even to answer!"
She walked quickly to the door, opened it and faced about with a gesture
of command. Nora hesitated a moment, then, without a word, walked from
the room. In the hall she paused, back still toward Ann as though she
had more that she would say, as if, possibly, she considered the
advisability of going further; but, if that was true, she had no
opportunity then, for the door closed firmly and the lock clicked.
It was the most confused moment in Ann's life. The identification of her
husband, her several trying scenes with Bayard, would not compare with
it. She heard Nora's slow, receding footsteps with infinite relief and,
when they were quite gone, she realized that as she stood, back to the
door, she was shaking violently. She was weakened, frightened by what
had passed, and, as she strove through those minutes to control her
thoughts, to marshal the elements of the ordeal through which she had
come, she became possessed by the terrifying conviction that she had no
defence to offer! That she could not answer the other woman's
accusations, that by telling Nora she was above replying to those
charges she was only hiding behind a front of false superiority, a
veneer of assurance that was as artificial as it was thin.
She moved to her bed with lagging, uncertain steps and sat down with a
long sigh; then, drew a wrist across her eyes, propping herself erect
with the other arm.
"She ... he belongs to her ..." she said aloud, trying to bring
coherence to her thinking by the uttered words. "He belongs ... to
her...."
A slow warmth went through her body, into her cheeks to make them flame
fiercely. That was a sense of guilt coming over her, shaming her,
torturing her, and behind it, inspiring, urging it along, giving it
strength, was that conscience of hers.
At other times she had defied that older self; only that evening she had
regained some of the ground from which it had driven her by its last
assault, lifting herself above the judgments she had been trained to
respect because, in transgressing them, she had experienced a free, holy
joy that had never been hers so long as she had remained within their
bounds. But now! That cry for escape was gone.
She had been stealing another woman's man ... and such a woman!
Never before had she faced such ugly truths as the girl had poured upon
her. Of the cancerous places in the social structure she had known, of
course; at times she had even gone so far as to judge herself a
wide-awake, keen-seeing woman, but now ... she shuddered as the woman's
words came back to her, "White or black or red or brown; but their money
was all th' same color." That was too horrible, too revolting; she could
not accept it with a detached point of view. Its very truth--she did not
doubt it--smirched her, for she had been stealing the man of such a
woman!
Oh, that conscience was finding its revenge! That day it had been
outraged, had been all but unseated; but now it came back with a
vengeance. She, the lawful wife of Ned Lytton, had plotted to win Bruce
Bayard. No, she had not! one part of her protested, as she weakened and
sought for any escape that meant relief. You did, you did! thundered
that older self. By passively accepting, as a fact, her want of him, she
had sinned. By finding joy in his touch, at sight of him, she had
grievously wronged not only Ned and herself but all people. She was a
contaminated thing! She was as bad, worse than Nora Brewster, because,
while Nora had sinned, she admitted it, had done it openly, and frankly
while she, Ann Lytton, had covered it with a cloak of hypocrisy, had
refused to admit her transgressions even to herself and lied and
distorted happenings, even her thoughts, until they were made to appease
her craven heart!
"She said it; she said it!" Ann muttered aloud. "She said that I was a
hypocrite. She said ... she did not hide!" Then, for a moment, she was
firm, drawing her body, even, to firmness to contend more effectively
against these suggestive accusations. What matter if she were married?
What if Bayard did love an abandoned woman? What mattered anything but
that she loved him?
And, as though it had waited for her to go that far to show her hand,
that other self cried out: "To your God you have given your word to love
this man, your husband! To your God you have promised to love no other!
To your God you have pledged him your body, your soul, your life, come
what may!"
She cowered before the thought, tearless, silent, and sat there, going
through and through the same emotional experiences, always coming
against the stone wall formed by her concepts of honor and morality.
In another room of the Manzanita House another woman fought with herself
that night. Nora, too, stood backed against her locked door a long time
after she had gained its refuge, bewildered, trying to think her way to
a clear understanding of all that had happened. Its entire consequence
came to her sooner than it had come to Ann. She groped along the wall to
her matchsafe, scratched a light, removed the chimney from her lamp and
set the wick burning. She waved out the match absently, put the charred
remains in the oilcloth cover of the washstand and said to herself,
"Well, I've done it."
It was as though she spoke of the accomplishment of an end the
advisability of which had been debatable in her mind, and as if there
were now no remedy. What was done, was done; events of the past could
not be altered, their consequences could not be changed.
She undressed listlessly, put on her nightgown and moved to the crinkled
mirror to take down her hair.
"I guess that'll fix her," she muttered. "She'll get out, now...."
She looked at herself in the mirror as she began to speak, but, when her
sight met its own reflection, her voice faltered, the words trailed off.
She stood motionless, scrutinizing herself closely, critically; then saw
a slow flush come up from her neck, flooding her cheeks. Uneasily her
eyes dropped from their reflection, then shot back with a rallying of
the dark defiance that had been in them; only for an instant, for the
fire disappeared, they became unsteady.
Her movements grew rapid. She drew hairpins from the coils and dropped
them heedlessly. She shook out her hair and brushed it with nervous
vigor; then braided it feverishly, as if some inner emotion might find
vent in that simple task.
Time after time she shot glances into the mirror, but in each instance
she felt her cheeks burn more fiercely, saw the confused humility
increasing in her expression and, finally, her rapid breathing lost its
regularity, her lips quivered and her shoulders lifted in a sob. She
covered her face with her hands, pressing finger tips tightly against
her eyes, struggling to master herself, to bring again that defiant
spirit. But she could not; it had gone and she was fighting doggedly
against the reaction, knowing that it must come, knowing what it would
be, almost terror stricken at the realization.
She paced the floor, stopping now and then, and finally cried aloud:
"She _was_ stealin' him; he _is_ mine!"--as though some presence had
accused her of a lie. Again, she repeated the words, but in a whisper;
and conviction was not with her.
She sat down on the edge of her bed, but could not remain quiet, and
commenced walking, moving automatically, almost dreamlike, distressed,
flinging her arms about like a guilt-maddened Lady Macbeth. Each time
she passed the mirror she experienced a terrible desire to meet her own
gaze again, but she would not, for her own eyes accused her, bored
relentlessly into her heart.
"An' I called her a hypocrite," she burst out suddenly, halted, turned
and rushed back toward the dresser, straining forward, forcing her gaze
to read the soul that was bared before her, there in the mirror.
"You lied to her!" she muttered. "You told her dirty lies; you're
throwin' him down. You're killin' her... You ...
"Oh, Bruce, Bruce!"
She turned away and let the tears come again.
"You'd hate me, Bruce, you'd hate me!"
She threw herself full length on the bed. Jealousy had had its inning.
All the bitterness that it could create had been flung forth on to the
woman who had roused it and then the emotion had died. Strong as it was
in Nora, the elemental, the childish, it was not so strong as her
loyalty to Bayard's influence and the same thing in her that would have
welcomed physical abuse from him now called on her to undo her work of
the evening, to strive to prevent his love for Ann from wasting itself,
though every effort that she might make toward that end would cause her
suffering.
It was midnight when Ann Lytton, still motionless, still chilling and
flushing as thought followed thought through her confused mind, found
herself in the center of her dark room. The knock that had roused her to
things outside sounded again on her door, low and cautious.
"Who is it?" she asked, unsteadily.
"It's me, Nora."
The tone was husky, weak, contrite.
"Well, what do you want, Nora?"--summoning a sternness for the query.
"I ... I want to come in; I want to tell you somethin' ... if you'll let
me."
Ann calculated a moment, but the quality of the other woman's voice,
supplicating, uncertain, swung the balance and she unlocked the door,
opening it wide. Nora stood in her long white gown, head hung, fingers
nervously intertwining before her.
A pitiable humility was about the girl, and on sight of it Ann's manner
changed.
"What is it, Nora? Won't you come in?"
She stepped forward, took her by the hand and gently urged her into the
room, closing the door.
"Sit on the bed, Nora, while I light the lamp."
"Oh, M's. Lytton, please don't ..."--with an uneasy movement. "I'd
rather ... not have to look at you...."
A pause.
"Why, if you want it that way, of course, Nora. Sit down here. Aren't
you cold?"
She took a shawl from its hook, threw it across the other's shoulders
and sat down on the bed, drawing Nora to her side. An awkward silence
followed, then came the sound of Nora's crying, lifted to a pitch just
above a sigh.
"Don't, Nora! Please, don't! What is it, now? Tell me ... do tell me,"
Ann pleaded, growing stronger, of better balance, feeling some of her
genuine assurance returning.
"I ... I lied to you. I ..." Nora began and stopped.
Ann uttered no word; just inhaled very slowly and squared her shoulders
with relief.
"I ... was jealous of you. When I saw him with his arms around you this
afternoon, I ... couldn't stand it. I had to do somethin'. I was drove
to it."
She brushed the damp hair back from her forehead and cleared her throat.
She clutched Ann's one hand in both hers and turned to talk closely into
her face.
"I ... it wasn't all lies. That part about me, about Charley Ling's, was
true. It was true that Bruce took me out of there, too, but not for what
you think. I ... I was pretty bad for a young girl, but I never knew
much different until I knew Bruce ... I didn't know much.
"I was at Ling's. I didn't lie about that," she repeated stoically,
baring her shame in an attempt to atone for her former behavior. "I'd
been there quite a while, when one night when the' was whiskey an' men
an' hell, he come....
"I'll never forget it. I can't. He was so big that he filled th' door,
he was so ... different, so clean an' disgusted-like, that it stopped
th' noise for a minute. He stood lookin' us over; then he saw me an'
looked an' looked, an' I couldn't do nothin' but hang my head when 'twas
my business to laugh at him.
"He didn't say a word at first, but he come across to to me an' set down
beside me, an' when th' piano started again an' folks quit givin' us
attention he said,
"'You're only a kid.'
"Just that; but it made me cry. He was so kind of accusin' an' so
gentle. Nobody'd ever been gentle with me before that I could remember
of. They'd been accusin' all right, all right ... but not gentle. He
went away that night an' I cried until it was light. In th' mornin' he
come back an' asked for me an' took me outdoors an' talked to me. He
talked.... He didn't do no preachin'; he didn't say nothin' about bein'
good or bein' bad. He just said that that place wasn't fit for coyotes
to live in, that I'd never see th' mountains or th' stars or th'
sunshine livin' there. He said that.... An' he said he'd get me a job
here in Yavapai....
"He did. Got me this job, in this hotel. He stuck by me when folks
started to talk; he stopped it. He taught me to ride an' like horses an'
dogs an' th' valley an' things like that. He give me things to read an'
talked to me about 'em an' ... was good to me.
"I've always been like his sister. That's straight, M's. Lytton; that's
no lie. He's been my brother; that's all. More 'n that, I'm about th'
only woman he's looked at in three years until ... you come. He ain't a
saint but he's ... an awful fine man."
She was silent a moment and stroked the hand she had taken in hers.
"That's all. That's all the' is to say. I've tried to get him, tried to
make him care for me ... a lot; but I ain't his kind,"--with a slow
shake of the head as she withdrew one hand. "I can never be his kind ...
in that way. I've known it all along, but I've never let myself believe
th' truth. He didn't know, didn't even guess. That's how hopeless it
was. He ain't never seen that I'd do ... anythin' for him.
"When you come, I saw th' difference in him ... right off. He ... You're
his kind, M's. Lytton. You're what he's waited for, what he's lookin'
for. I was jealous. I hated you from th' first. I was nice to you
'cause he wanted it, 'cause that would make him happier. I fought
against showin' what I felt for his sake ... for him. Then, to-day, when
I seen how he looked after he'd had you in his arms where I've wanted to
be always, as I've wanted to make him look, I....
"It made me kind of crazy. I felt like tellin' you what I was, lyin'
about what I was to Bruce, thinkin' it might drive you away an' I might
sometime make him love me. But, after I'd done it, after I got it into
words, I knew it was against everything he'd ever taught me, against
everything he'd ever been, an' that if you went 't would break his
heart. That's why I come back to tell you I lied, to tell you how it
is....
"You go to him now; you go before it's too late. I tried to come between
you ... an' didn't. You go to him before somethin' does...."
She felt Ann's arm go about her and stifling her sobs she yielded to the
pull until her head rested on the other woman's shoulder.
"Oh, Nora, I can't tell you how this makes me feel; I can't. I'll never
be able to. There's nothing I can say at all, nothing I can do, even!"
The waitress lifted her face to peer closely at her.
"Just one thing you can do," she said, lowly. "Go to him now. That's
what I come back here for--to tell you I lied, so you would go."
Ann straightened and shook her head sharply.
"That's impossible," she said, emphatically. "Impossible."
"Impossible, M's. Lytton?"--wiping her eyes.
"Yes, Nora."
"But why? He loves you!"
"When you were here before you gave the reason--I'm a married woman."
"But that ain't.... Why, do you _love_ your husband?"
She grasped Ann's arm and shook it gently as she put that question in a
voice that the tears had made hoarse, and leaned forward to catch the
answer. For an interval Ann did not reply, gave no sign that she had
heard, and Nora repeated her query with impressive slowness.
"It isn't a question of loving, Nora," she finally said. "I'm his wife;
I have a wife's duty to perform."
"But do you love him?" the girl persisted.
"No, I don't any more ..."--sadly, yet without regret.
"An' you'd go back to him, M's. Lytton? You'd go back without lovin'
him?"
Incredulity was in her tone.
"Of course. It is my place. He is coming to me soon, stronger, wiser, I
hope, and there's a chance that we will find at least a little peace
together."
"But the' won't be love,"--in a whisper.
Ann gave a little shudder and braced her shoulders backward.
"No, Nora. That is past. Besides, I--"
"Don't be afraid to admit it!" the girl urged, speaking rapidly. "Don't
be afraid to tell me. I know what you're thinkin'. You love Bruce
Bayard! I know; you can't hide it from me, M's. Lytton."
Ann's fingers twisted the coverlet.
"And if I do?" she asked weakly. "What if I do?"
"What if you do? Ain't lovin' a man answer enough for any woman?" cried
the other. "Is the' anything else that holds folks together? Is the'
anything else that makes men an' women happy? Does your bein' a man's
wife mean happiness? Your promisin' to love him didn't make you love,
did it? Because a preacher told you you was one didn't make it so, did
it? Nobody can make you love him, not even yourself, 'cause you said it
was duty that takes you back; that you don't love him. But you can't
help lovin' Bruce Bayard!
"Oh, M's. Lytton, don't fool yourself about this duty! It's up to a man
an' a woman to take love, to take happiness, when it comes. You can't
set still an' watch it go by an' hope to have it come again; real
happiness don't happen but once in most of our lives. I know. I've been
down ... I've been happy, too ... I know!
"An' duty! Why, ma'am, duty like you think you ought to do, is waste!
You're young, you're healthy, you're pretty. You'll waste your best
years, you'll waste your health, you'll waste your looks on duty!
You'll waste all your love; you'll get old an' bitter an'....
"If the's anything under heaven that's a crime, it's wasted love! Oh,
M's. Lytton, I wasted my love when I was a kid, 'cause I didn't know
better. I sold mine for money. For God's sake, don't sell yours for
duty! If the's anything your God meant folks to do was to get what joy
they can out of life. He wouldn't want you to think of bein' Ned
Lytton's wife as ... as your duty. He ... God ain't that kind, M's.
Lytton; he ain't!"
"Nora, Nora, don't say these things!" Ann pleaded. "You're wrong, you
must be! Don't tempt me to ... these new ways ... don't...."
"New!" the girl broke in. "It ain't new, what I've been sayin'. It's as
old as men an' women. It's as old as th' world. Th' things you try to
make yourself believe are th' new ones. Love was old before folks first
thought about duty. It seems new, because you ain't ever let yourself
see straight ... you never had to until now."
"Nora, stop I You must stop! You can't be right ... you can't be!"
The waitress trembled against Ann and commenced to cry under the strain
of her earnestness.
"But I know I'm right, M's. Lytton, I know I am! I know what you're
doin'. Do--don't you see that you wouldn't be much different from what I
was, if you went back to your husband, hatin' him an' lovin' another?
Happiness comes just once; it's a sin to let it go by!"
Slowly Ann withdrew her embrace from the girl. She sat with hands limp
in her lap until Nora's sobbing had subsided to mere long-drawn breaths;
then she rose and walked to the window, looking out into the moonlit
night. And when Nora, drying her eyes, regaining control of her
emotions, started to speak again she saw that Ann was lost in thought,
that it was unnecessary to argue further, so she went quietly from the
room. The rattle of the knob, the sound of the closing door did not
rouse the woman she left behind. Ann only stared out at the far hills
which were a murky blot in the cold light; stared with eyes that did not
see, for out of the storm of that night a new creature was coming into
active life within her and the re-birth was so wonderful that it quite
deadened her physical senses.