"You mean, what would be thought of you, if it were known?" inquired
he. "Well, it probably wouldn't improve your social position."
"I am disgraced," said she, curiously rather than emotionally.
"Would be, if it were known," corrected he, "and if you are nothing but
a woman without money looking for a husband. If you happened to be a
singer or an actress, it would add to your reputation--make you more
talked about."
"But I am not an actress or a singer."
"On the other hand, I should say you didn't amount to much socially.
Except in Hanging Rock, of course--if there is still a Hanging Rock.
Don't worry about your reputation. Fussing and fretting about your
social position doesn't help toward a career."
"Naturally, you take it coolly. But you can hardly expect me to,"
cried she.
"You are taking it coolly," said he. "Then why try to work yourself up
into a fit of hysterics? The thing is of no importance--except that
you're free now--will never be bothered by Siddall again. You ought to
thank me, and forget it. Don't be one of the little people who are
forever agitating about trifles."
Trifles! To speak of such things as trifles! And yet-- Well, what
did they actually amount to in her life? "Yes, I AM free," she said
thoughtfully. "I've got what I wanted--got it in the easiest way
possible."
"That's better," said he approvingly.
"And I've burnt my bridges behind me," pursued she. "There's nothing
for me now but to go ahead."
"Which road?" inquired he carelessly.
"The career," cried she. "There's no other for me. Of course I COULD
marry Stanley, when he's free, as he would be before very long, if I
suggested it. Yes, I could marry him."
"Could you?" observed he.
"Doesn't he love me?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Then why do you say he would not marry me?" demanded she.
"Did I say that?"
"You insinuated it. You suggested that there was a doubt."
"Then, there is no doubt?"
"Yes, there is," she cried angrily. "You won't let me enjoy the least
bit of a delusion. He might marry me if I were famous. But as I am
now-- He's an inbred snob. He can't help it. He simply couldn't
marry a woman in my position. But you're overlooking one thing--that
_I_ would not marry HIM."
"That's unimportant, if true," said Keith.
"You don't believe it?"
"I don't care anything about it, my dear lady," said Keith. "Have you
got time to waste in thinking about how much I am in love with you?
What a womanly woman you are, to be sure. Your true woman, you know,
never thinks of anything but love--not how much she loves, but how much
she is loved."
"Be careful!" she warned. "Some day you'll go too far in saying
outrageous things to me."
"And then?" said he smilingly.
"You care nothing for our friendship?"
"The experiment is the only interest I have in you," replied he.
"That is not true," said she. "You have always liked me. That's why
you looked up my hus-- General Siddall and got ready for him. That's
why you saved me to-day. You are a very tender-hearted and generous
man--and you hide it as you do everything else about yourself."
He was looking off into space from the depths of the easy chair, a
mocking smile on his classical, impassive face.
"What puzzles me," she went on, "is why you interest yourself in as
vain and shallow and vacillating a woman as I am. You don't care for
my looks--and that's all there is to me."
"Don't pause to be contradicted," said he.
She was in a fine humor now. "You might at least have said I was up to
the female average, for I am. What have they got to offer a man but
their looks? Do you know why I despise men?"
"Do you?"
"I do. And it's because they put up with women as much as they
do--spend so much money on them, listen to their chatter, admire their
ridiculous clothes. Oh, I understand why. I've learned that. And I
can imagine myself putting up with anything in some one man I happened
to fancy strongly. But men are foolish about the whole sex--or all of
them that have a shadow of a claim to good looks."
"Yes, the men make fools of themselves," admitted he. "But I notice
that the men manage somehow to make the careers, and hold on to the
money and the power, while the women have to wheedle and fawn and
submit in order to get what they want from the men. There's nothing to
be said for your sex. It's been hopelessly corrupted by mine. For all
the talk about the influence of woman, what impression has your sex
made upon mine? And your sex--it has been made by mine into exactly
what we wished it to be. Take my advice, get out of your sex. Abandon
it, and make a career."
After a while she recalled with a start the events of less than an hour
ago--events that ought to have seemed wildly exciting, arousing the
deepest and strongest emotions. Yet they had made no impression upon
her. Absolutely none. She had no horror in the thought that she had
been the victim of a bigamist; she had no elation over her release into
freedom and safety. She wondered whether this arose from utter
frivolousness or from indifference to the trifles of conventional joys,
sorrows, agitations, excitements which are the whole life of most
people--that indifference which is the cause of the general opinion
that men and women who make careers are usually hardened in the process.
As she lay awake that night--she had got a very bad habit of lying
awake hour after hour--she suddenly came to a decision. But she did
not tell Keith for several days. She did it in this way:
"Don't you think I'm looking better?" she asked.
"You're sleeping again," said he.
"Do you know why? Because my mind's at rest. I've decided to accept
your offer."
"And my terms?" said he, apparently not interested by her announcement.
"And your terms," assented she. "You are free to stop whenever the
whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do you wish me to
do?"
"Nothing at present," replied he. "I will let you know."
She was disappointed. She had assumed that something--something new
and interesting, probably irritating, perhaps enraging, would occur at
once. His indifference, his putting off to a future time, which his
manner made seem most hazily indefinite, gave her the foolish and
collapsing sense of having broken through an open door.