The Price She Paid Part 32

After a long silence, she said: "What does this make out of me?"

"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 sn.o.b. 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 friends.h.i.+p?"

"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 s.p.a.ce from the depths of the easy chair, a mocking smile on his cla.s.sical, impa.s.sive 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 s.e.x--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 s.e.x. It's been hopelessly corrupted by mine. For all the talk about the influence of woman, what impression has your s.e.x made upon mine? And your s.e.x--it has been made by mine into exactly what we wished it to be. Take my advice, get out of your s.e.x. 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," a.s.sented 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 a.s.sumed 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.

VII

THE first of September they went up to town. Stanley left at once for his annual shooting trip; Donald Keith disappeared, saying--as was his habit--neither what he was about nor when he would be seen again. Mrs.