“Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's,” said I. “If
there are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out some
day that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend--and that you
wouldn't like them, if they were.”
“What--just what--happened to you down town to-day--after you left me?”
“A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap--why, I can't quite
fathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away.”
“A friend of yours?”
“The man we were talking about--your ex-god--Langdon.”
“Langdon,” she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had
hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms
still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet in
pale blue slippers appear and disappear--first one, then the other--at the
edge of her trailing skirt.
Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me.
“You are sure it was he?” she asked.
I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had
been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth
and innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced,
intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully as
the light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl that
was questioning me there; it was a woman.
“Yes--Langdon,” I replied. “But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse is
nothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, I'll be
as friendly as ever--only a bit less of a trusting ass, I fancy. We're a
lot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one side, now on the
other. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under the code it's not
necessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was the assassin, I had
made my plans to try to save myself at his expense, though I believed him
to be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's got some good reason
for creeping up on me in the dark.”
“You are sure it was he?” she repeated.
“He, and nobody else,” replied I. “He decided to do me up--and I guess
he'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the bird
will fall.”
“Do you really not care any more than you show?” she asked. “Or is your
manner only bravado--to show off before me?”
“I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you,” said I. “It'll be a godsend
to have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years.”
She went back to leaning against the table, her arms folded as before. I
saw she was thinking out something. Finally she said:
“I have decided not to accept your release.”