“I’ll go with you, Lu--anywhere. I’m crazy to go with you. Let’s hurry
up.”
“All right, get dressed while I ’phone the Colonel. He said he’d be
waiting at the St. James Club for an answer for the next half-hour.”
* * * * *
I have a very dim remembrance of that evening. We were in some
restaurant, and the drink was cold and yet it burned my throat like
fire. I had never tasted any liquor before, except the light wine that
the Count sometimes sparingly gave me. I heard some one saying--I think
it was Mr. Davidson:
“She’s a hell of a girl to take out for a good time.”
I said I felt ill, and Lu took me out to get the air. She said she would
be back soon. But once out there, I conceived a passionate desire to
return to my room and I ran away in the street from Lu.
As I opened my door a feeling of calamity seemed to come over me. It
must have been nearly twelve o’clock, and I had never been out so late
before, not even with Reggie.
As I came in, Reggie, who had been sitting by the table, stood up. He
stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Then:
“You’ve been out with men!” he said.
“Yes,” I returned defiantly, “I have.”
“And you’ve been drinking!”
“Yes,” I said. “So have you.”
He flung me from him, and then all of a sudden he threw himself down in
the chair by the table and, putting his head upon his arms, he shook
with sobs. All of my anger melted away and I knelt down beside him and
entreated him to forgive me. I told him just where I had been and with
whom, and I said that it was all because I was tired, tired of waiting
so long for him. I said:
“Reggie, no man has a right to bind a girl to a long engagement like
this. Either marry me, or set me free. I am wasting my life for you.”
He said if we were to be married now, his whole future would be ruined;
that he expected to be nominated to a high political position, and to
marry at this stage of his career would be sheer madness.
I promised to wait for Reggie one more year; but I was very unhappy, and
all the rest of that winter I could not refrain from constantly
referring to our expected marriage, though I knew it irritated him for
me to refer to it.