They had walked fast, and the flags were up in Elaine’s cheeks. “The walk, yes!” she said quickly. “But as for your East Side! . . . Well, I prefer the middle.” She shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m not a snob. I know these people are every bit as good as I am; but I don’t feel any call to herd with them.”
“Oh well, let them go!” said Wilfred, smiling. (How useless this ordeal! But he had resolved upon it. As soon as it was dark, he had vowed.)
Elaine, glancing at him through her lashes, moved away ever so slightly. The move was not lost on Wilfred, but he stubbornly held to his purpose.
Looking out over the river, Elaine said quickly: “This view makes up for any amount of East Side!”
Wilfred, thankful for the respite, followed her glance. The stream was like a magical beam of twilight in the dark. It seemed to be the source of its own blue, darkling radiance. The fading sky held no such poignancy. The river was both still and subtly perturbed; like a smooth breast swelling upon inaudible sighs; like a quiet face working with obscure passions. Out in the middle rose the crouching black rocks off the point of Blackwell’s Island; the island itself, appeared, pointing out of the obscurity like a gigantic black forefinger. On it rose the inhuman prison buildings. Architects are always successful in designing prisons, Wilfred thought. Further to the left, and high against the sky sprang the vast cantilever bridge, a rumbling portent of the Age of Machines.
Wilfred put his yearning hand upon hers. She snatched her hand away.
“Oh, Wilfred! notthat!”
“Elaine, will you marry me?” he whispered.
“Oh!” she breathed crossly. “You know very well I don’t love you!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then why on earth . . . ?”
“I wanted you to know that I loved you.”
“I knew it. I am not blind.”
“But I was forced to tell you . . . because it was so difficult.”
“Oh, you ridiculous man! . . . I couldn’t possibly fall in love with a man like you!”
“I know it,” he murmured, while the iron entered slowly into his soul.
“You knew it all along,” she said. “You are no fool. I was glad to have you come to see me, you’re so intelligent. But I wondered why you continued to come.”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
Elaine said no more, but looked out over the river, kicking her heel impatiently against the stone of the parapet. How deeply grateful Wilfred was, to be spared her pity. How prompt and honest had been her response—like all her responses to life. While he backed and filled! He was not even sure at this moment that he wanted to marry her. Was there not a feeling of relief amidst all his pain? . . . Ah! if he might only hold her close, close in his arms and stop thinking!
He said: “You’ll catch cold if you continue to sit here.”
Lifting herself on her hands, she sprang down.
“We’ll have to walk a bit before we can hope to find a taxi,” said Wilfred.
“What’s the matter with the car-line?”
“All right. The nearest is on Second Avenue.”
They walked away from the river in a constrained silence. This was harder for Elaine to bear than for Wilfred. After awhile she burst out crossly:
“Oh, bother! You’ve spoiled everything!”
Wilfred smiled. “No,” he said. “You get me wrong. I am not bitter, because I expected nothing.”
“I think that’s just an attitude,” she said, looking at him shrewdly.
“Oh well, you’ll see—if you don’t cast me off.”
She impulsively slipped her hand through his arm. “Oh, Wilfred, Idowant you for a friend!” she said. “I have nobody to talk to but you.”
Wilfred was very happy. He thought without bitterness: I suppose I am a poor-spirited creature. Thankful for small favors. He said: “Why not? That thing is cleared away now. There are no bars between us. That’s why I spoke.”
“You have already given me three different reasons for speaking,” she remarked acutely.
Wilfred laughed. “All true! Life is not so simple!”
“You’re a funny man!”
“You know nothing about men,” said Wilfred. “You only recognize one quality in men. You want me for your friend, yet you despise me because I am willing to come in on that basis.”
“Not despise!” she said quickly.
“Well, supply your own word.”
“I don’t mind if you scold me,” she said with unexpected humility.
Wilfred laughed again, not very mirthfully. “I can be honester with you now,” he said. “I have nothing to lose.”
She stopped. “I’ll put your friendship to the test at once,” she said abruptly. “Let’s not go home. Let’s walk for miles and miles. Have dinner out.”
“Oh,willyou!” cried Wilfred in delight.
“Well! . . . you’re easily consoled,” she said dryly.
“I can’t help but be happy when you are beside me!”
She dropped his arm.
They turned Northward again. They went down hill under the bridge approach, and alongside the towering gas tanks. The next stage was marked by East River Park, with its row of fancy little brick houses, circa 1888; then through Pleasant avenue, a raw thoroughfare, belying its name; and finally through the secluded streets around the Northeast corner of the island, lined with gaily-painted wooden dwellings like a village. Not until they had reached the plaza where the red trolley cars start for the Bronx, did Elaine confess to being tired and hungry.
“Have you got enough money?” she asked like a boy.
Wilfred nodded. “We’ll get on the El. and ride back to Sixty-Seventh street,” he said. “There is a restaurant on Third avenue called Joe’s, famous in its way; I expect it’s like no place you have ever been in.”
The neighborhood was not prepossessing; and neither was Joe’s; a common-looking place with two rows of long tables, ended against the wall, like a Bowery restaurant.
Elaine looked about her with bright eyes. “I have never eaten in such a place,” she said. “I shall love it!”
“It’s not really as bad as it looks,” said Wilfred. “The commonness is deliberate. It is designed to attract those who appreciate good food, but do not like to put on style.”
“What a good idea!” said Elaine.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “Joe is a little discouraged. Style seems to be in the ascendant; and good living on the wane!”
“I can plant my elbows on the table, and slump down anyhow,” said Elaine. “Do you think they will allow me to smoke?”
“We’ll hazard it.”
Wilfred insisted on ordering champagne.
“How silly in such a place!” objected Elaine.
“Oh, no!” he said. “Joe is prepared for it. . . . Besides champagne has a special virtue. It puffs one up.”
Elaine pushed her plate away. “Wonderful food!” she said. “I’m as full as a tick!”
She lit a cigarette. There was no interference. Nearly all the other diners had left now. Wilfred was sitting opposite her with a smile etched around his lips; gazing at her with half-veiled eyes of pleasure. Elaine’s look at him became quizzical.
“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” he said reading her thought. “To-night I have had the best of you. Our walk together in the dark; our confidence in each other. If I were your husband I could have nothing better.”
Elaine’s smile broadened; and he perceived that she regarded this as mere sentimentalizing. Well, it didn’t matter now. He smiled on. He made no attempt to explain that his exquisite happiness was due to the fact that his heart was big and soft with pain. Impossible to convey such things in words.
“Besides, I have confessed myself to you,” he added. “I need hide no longer.”
“You are hiding things from me now!” she said.
“Things, but not myself.”
While she quizzed him, something was working behind it. Her eyes fell. “I wish I could be happy . . . like that,” she murmured.
An apprehension of worse to come struck through Wilfred. “You must feel something the same as I,” he said quickly.
“Something,” she said. “You’re a dear!”
The word chilled Wilfred. He hastened past it. “But not content?” he asked.
“Happiness seems to me to leave a bad taste in the mouth,” said Elaine, affecting lightness.
An exclamation of dismay was forced from Wilfred. “Oh!” Obscurely he had felt that Elaine was unhappy; but this forced it on his consciousness. He was thrown into confusion. He could scarcely conceive the possibility of pitying the glorious Elaine. She suffering too—but not for him! Still . . . fellows in pain! Compassion welled up in his breast. Compassion is most due to the strong, he felt.
“That’s just a phase,” he said quickly. “You knew the feeling of ridiculous happiness when you were a child.”
“Oh yes,” she said, “and later than that. That feeling is natural to me.”
“It will come back.”
“I wonder!”
“There’s a cloud over your sun at the moment; that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” she asked with a hard look, jealous of her secret.
It intimidated Wilfred. “I was only speculating,” he said, his eyes trailing away. Inwardly he was in a panic. Was it Joe? . . . It could not be Joe. . . . But he knew that itwasJoe! The thought was like the recurrence of a madness. He fought against it blindly. . . . She had not succumbed. She was fighting. Something must be done to help her! . . .
Elaine said, gloomily resting her chin on her palm: “Nobody can help anybody else, really. Each of us has his own particular hell.”
“Peoplecouldhelp one another if they were sufficiently honest,” Wilfred insisted. “It requires a terrifying honesty. Once or twice in a lifetime, maybe . . . I’ve been helped.”
Elaine’s look upon him was scarcely flattering. It said: Your case is hardly the same as mine!
Something must be done! Something must be done! the panic-stricken voice cried within Wilfred. He despaired of finding the right words to say. He said nothing.
“When you’re faced by a serious problem, should you listen to your heart or your head?” asked Elaine, flicking the ash off her cigarette.
“To both,” he answered.
“That’s merely silly,” she said with curling lip. “If they’re warring voices.”
Wilfred flushed. “I was wrong,” he said. “It’s confusing. . . . I never can speak without thinking. You should listen to your heart always.”
“Ah!” she said, with the air of one who had caught him out. “Then you believe that passion should override everything; all considerations of prudence; everything!”
Wilfred felt his lips growing tight. “Passion does not always come from the heart,” he said. “As I understand it.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is infatuation.”
At that word Elaine ran up her eyebrows in two little peaks; but Wilfred somehow found the courage to face her out. A silence succeeded, which shook him badly. A gush of foolish, emotional speech filled his mouth like warm blood. He grimly swallowed it, waiting.
“Suppose one experienced a violent passion,” asked Elaine, with a casual air which concealed nothing from the man who loved her, “how on earth would one know whether it was love or infatuation?”
“By the quality of the object,” he said quickly. “If it was worthy. . . .”
“That’s nonsense!” she said scornfully. “If you were infatuated you would think the object was glorious anyhow.”
Wilfred shook his head. “That’s where the heart comes in. No matter how blinded we may be, we each have a voice in our breasts that whispers the truth. Only we don’t want to listen.”
“You must have a well-trained little prompter!” said Elaine.
He looked at her. He could bear her gibes. He held his tongue, waiting for the right word.
She said: “I’d have to have some surer guide than mysterious inner voices.”
“That’s easy,” said Wilfred quickly. “If your passion is for a worthy object you feel proud; if it is not worthy, you suffer like the devil.”
“I wasn’t talking aboutmypassion,” said Elaine laughing; but her long-lashed eyes were dreadfully haunted.
“Oh, sure!” said Wilfred, grinning like a man on the rack. “That’s just the clumsy English language!” . . . Why can’t we speak out! he cried to himself; I love her so!
“Well, having got thus far,” said Elaine with a sprightly air that was almost more than he could bear; “having recognized that one is the victim of an infatuation, how is one to set about curing oneself?”
Wilfred shook his head helplessly.
“What! has the doctor no remedy to offer?”
“Leave it to time,” he murmured.
“That might work in the case of an elastic nature,” said Elaine. “One of those natures that snaps easily in and out of entanglements. But there’s another kind; stubborn.”
Wilfred could not speak. Something inside him was pressing up, and he could not force it back. It was stopping his throat; he struggled for breath. . . .
“Anyhow,” said Elaine, raising her chin, “I don’t admit your absolutes of love and infatuation. What’s the difference between them? It’s all in the point of view. It’s not the object that matters, but the feeling!”
The constriction within Wilfred suddenly broke. He heard with a feeling of surprise, a low, shaken voice issuing from between his lips. “Oh, Elaine! you couldn’t! He’s rotten! I am not quick to discover evil in people. But this man is altogether evil. . . . Never mind about his life. I expect he’s told you; he always does. What he’s done doesn’t matter. It is what he is! Your nature is clear and open; youmustfeel it . . . !”
Elaine after a quick glance of astonishment, listened with curving lips. “Of whom are you speaking?” she asked.
“You know,” he said, suddenly dashed.
There it was out! He need not have been so terrified, because Elaine was equal to the situation. She shrugged. “Oh well, it’s no secret that Joe and I are pals. I should hardly come to you for a testimonial of his character.”
Her remote glance, full of pain, assured him that her inner self was listening to his words. It enabled him to bear her scorn. “Worse than positive evil,” he said. “It’s a sort of ghastly sterility. He’s a monster! He cannot feel anything.”
“Oh, I assure you, you are wrong about that,” said Elaine with her tormented and contemptuous smile.
“Lust,” he said very low, not able to look at her then.
“Well?” she said simply.
Wilfred was struck dumb by that query. Why not lust? Well . . . why not . . . ?
In a moment he went on: “You must not think that I am merely jealous. I have no hopes. If Joe had never existed, you would not have cared for me. Remember too, that I’ve known him for ten years. This is not something that has sprung into my mind since I learned that you. . . . Youmustbelieve that I am honest! I love you! If it was anybody else but him. . . . I haven’t seen Joe but about half a dozen times in my life. From the first he has represented to me the principle of evil; that which destroys us! I have seen how he debauches everyone with whom he comes in contact. He calls to the evil in the natures of others. He goes on unharmed because he feels nothing. The thought that he might obtain a hold on you, a permanent hold. . . . Oh God! it won’t bear speaking of! It is too horrible. . . .”
He jumped up as if he were about to run out of the place.
“Steady!” whispered Elaine. “People are looking. . . .”
He dropped into his chair; his startled eyes darting around.
After a silence, she said sullenly: “This is just emotional stuff.” She turned her cheek on her palm, half averting her face from him. “. . . Anyhow, I’m not engaged to him.”
“I know the nature of the spell he exerts over you,” Wilfred went on more calmly. “I have seen it working; I have felt it myself in a different way. It is horrible and irresistible—yes, and delicious, too. Delicious! I say this, because I must force you to see that I understand. I don’t blame you for feeling it. . . . You think that I’m something less than a man—Oh, well, never mind about me! . . . But I want you to know that I never put you on any silly pedestal. I love you because you’re warm and human, and of the same flesh as me. I don’t blame you. . . .”
“Thanks!” drawled Elaine. Her eyes were hidden from him.
“. . . I don’t see how you’re going to resist it. A pure and passionate woman! But marriage. . . . Oh, God! . . .”
“What’s the alternative?” she murmured.
“Give yourself to him,” said Wilfred quickly.
Elaine jerked her head up, staring at him in pure amazement.
“That startles you?” he asked somberly.
“Not the suggestion,” she said. “I’m no bread and butter miss. But that it should come from you . . . !”
“Oh, leave me out of it! Look on me as a sort of disembodied voice. . . . It would be better than marriage, wouldn’t it?”
No answer from Elaine.
“This thing is strong only when you oppose it. Give in to it, and you’ll discover its insignificance. . . .”
Elaine looked at him startled; then closely hid her eyes again.
“. . . Bad morality, but good commonsense,” said Wilfred with a jangling laugh.
Elaine said in her casual voice: “They say that infatuation grows on what it feeds upon.”
“I don’t mean for a night,” he said bluntly. “Go away with him. Stay with him as long as you want. He could not take anything from you that mattered, if you were not bound. . . .”
She gave no sign.
“He might reject your offered sacrifice,” Wilfred went on grimly. “Marriage with you is what he wants. It would be a fine thing for him. You’d have to insist. . . .” Wilfred’s voice began to shake. “Ah, do not fight yourself until you are worn out! Beware of that fatal moment of weariness, when you are willing to give into anything!”
“Would you take me when I came back?” asked Elaine in an ironical voice without looking at him.
“Like a shot!—if you wanted me. However, I have no illusions about that. . . .”
Elaine laughed shakily, and bestirred herself. “What a lot of nonsense I’m letting you talk!” she said in an insincere voice. “One would think I only had to get on a train with a man to solve all problems! The Lord knows, I’m not squeamish; but after all, society is organized on a certain basis; and I’m not prepared to. . . .”
“Now who’s a coward!” cried Wilfred, facing her down. “You have accused me of it often enough—by implication. But at least I will face things . . . even this! . . . What do you want? The sanction and blessing of society on such a thing?”
She shook her lowered head. “Not really,” she said very low. “It’s just that I doubt the efficacy of your remedy. . . .” Then lower still: “I think . . . that you underrate the strength of such a feeling . . . in a woman . . . well, in me!”
“Perhaps I do,” he said with a dreadfully sinking heart. “I am not pure. I never was pure. . . . But, Elaine, not marriage! . . . Oh, not marriage . . . !”
“Come on,” she said. “The waiters are fidgeting. They want to close.”
Shehad a sweet, bell-like soprano, which commanded great applause; but Wilfred disliked to hear her sing. A little too bell-like perhaps; a suggestion of the metal, however silvery. He was reminded of huskier and less admirable voices, which nevertheless had the power to bring tears to his eyes. But of course he applauded Daisy with the rest. He had met her three times on the occasions of Ladies’ nights at the dinners of a little club to which he belonged. She sang for her dinner. He was not in the least attracted to her; but in a circle of serious-minded men, mostly married, it was up to him to prove his mettle. He could not have allowed one of the dull fellows to carry off the only girl in their midst. She was a girl; but not a particularly young one; fully Wilfred’s own age. So he had taken her home each time.
She was pretty enough to gratify his fastidiousness, especially as it was not an obvious prettiness. She wore glasses, which gave her rather the air of a young school-ma’am; and it was only after reaching a certain degree of intimacy, that you discovered there were lovely blue eyes behind the glass. She had too, an admirable straight, short nose, and a sweet-lipped mouth, a thought too small. Her body was well enough. She gave an impression of thinness which was illusory. She was a coquette, and a great fool; and conversation with her was a weariness to a young man who had a good conceit of himself, owing to her ridiculous assumptions. But old men and unattractive men crowded around her.
Wilfred had always found a certain stimulus in the society of a coquette. It would make him a little indignant to see other men willing to subserve their pretensions; and when opportunity offered, he was eager to undertake the rehabilitation of his sex. Moreover, it was amusing to observe the astonishment of a coquette when her queenship was coolly questioned. Derision was devastating to coquettes. Unfortunately, the game was too easy. There was no glory in making a conquest of a coquette. Dethroned, she forthwith grovelled.
Daisy lived far up-town. She shared a tiny flat with a girl who was a trained nurse. To-night in order to make the long journey tolerable, Wilfred set about provoking Daisy to wrath.
“What a pretty little wife Dexter has!” he remarked.
“Do you think so?” said Daisy melodiously.
“Such eyes, such teeth, such hair! I don’t blame him for keeping her close.”
“That is just what you would do, isn’t it?”
“You bet I would! . . . Sweet enough to eat! Think of havingthatto fetch your slippers!”
“Yes, she looked like a slipper-fetcher,” said Daisy.
“You wouldn’t fetch a man’s slippers, would you?”
“You are merely being fatuous!” she said.
“. . . Like a delicious kitten!” said Wilfred. “All soft and downy!”
“They live in the Bronx, don’t they?” enquired Daisy, feeling of her back hair. “She looks as if she had her clothes made near home.”
Wilfred hooted. “You can’t bear to hear another woman praised!”
“Not at all!” said Daisy with dignity. “I enjoy looking at a pretty woman as much as a man does. I have always said so. Women are nicer to look at than men, any day. And a woman is a far better judge of another woman’s looks than any man is!”
“Maybe so,” said Wilfred. “But a pretty woman isn’t pretty for women.”
“No, only for the lords of creation, I suppose.”
“You’re rather pretty yourself,” he said casually appraising her.
“Merci, monsieur!”
“But you give yourself such airs!”
This line served very well for half a dozen stations on the elevated. Daisy stiffened her back as if she had swallowed the poker; and her eyes shot sparks of pure anger through the glasses. All very well; good fun as long as the sparks flew; but when, at last, she began to pull down the corners of her babyish mouth, Wilfred suddenly sickened.
Turning her blue eyes reproachfully on him, she murmured: “Why are you so hateful to me?”
His eyes bolted. Why can’t she play the game? he thought ill-temperedly. Lord! if she turned soft, she would be quite unendurable. He cast hastily about in his mind for some expedient to tide him over the remaining stations. He happened to remember that the trained nurse was engaged on night duty at the time. Affecting to yawn, he said:
“Gosh! I hate to think of the long trip back again!”
“It’s not my fault that you live so far down-town,” she said.
“Believe I’ll stay all night with you,” he said, very offhand.
Daisy was electrified. “How dare you say such a thing to me!” she cried. “How dare you . . . !”
This was splendid! It produced the briskest quarrel they had ever had; and the rest of the stations passed unnoticed. It carried them down the stairs, along Columbus avenue, and around the corner to the door of the apartment house where she lived. Wilfred was tired of it by this time; and hailed his approaching deliverance with relief. Never again! he promised himself. She wasn’t amusing even in her anger. What an unworthy and trumped-up business this girl-chasing was, anyhow!
“In all my life I have never been so insulted!” she was saying. “I never want to see you again until you are prepared to apologize. . . .”
This brought them to the steps of her house. They discovered that the darkened vestibule was already occupied by a couple engaged in the business of saying good-night. Daisy quickly caught hold of Wilfred’s sleeve, and pulled him by. A light broke upon him. She intended that he should stay! He trembled with internal laughter. His heart began to beat faster. They walked on a little way in silence. Wilfred, grinning, studied Daisy’s face in the light of a street lamp. It still bore an expression of ferocious outraged virtue. What somersaults women could perform without losing their faces!
When they got back, the vestibule was empty. He followed Daisy into the house without anything further being said; and into her own little place on the first floor above. She closed the door, and turning around, began in pathetic accents:
“Now that you’ve forced your way in here, I hope. . . .”
Wilfred laughed; and seized her rudely in his arms. An instinct told him that she adored being treated rudely. He carefully removed her glasses, and put them on a table. There was light enough for him to see her charming, vague, shy eyes. He discovered that he clasped within the too artful clothes, the body of a very nymph with slim, boyish legs, round arms, and small firm breasts.
“Ah, you pretty thing! you pretty thing!” he murmured, heartily enough.
“Oh, Wilfred, spare me!” she pleaded. “Not that . . . Wilfred!”
“What did you expect?” he asked, between his kisses. “That we’d sit here and hold hands?”
“But Wilfred, I’ve never . . . I’ve never. . . .”
“Then it’s high time you did!” he said, laughing and kissing her.
“Oh, you’re so masterful!” she breathed.
Wilfred’s arms relaxed. Startled, he tossed his head up, and stared into the dark.Masterful!Of course, when one didn’t give a damn! What a horrid joke this business . . . !
However, there she waited, expectant. And after all she was very sweet. One couldn’t be wretched all the time. Here was a drug for wretchedness. He kissed her again.
“What was the matter?” she whispered.
“I thought I heard something,” he said with a lip that curled in self-mockery.
“We are quite safe,” she whispered, wreathing her white arms around his neck.
—— Hospital,
St. Louis.
Dear Wilfred:
I came here because it was a good way off, and I wanted to make a clean break with everything.
Besides, I was attracted by the reputation of Dr. Shales, whom they call the greatest surgeon in the world; the superhuman butcher. He’s the bright, particular star of this institution. It was rather a let-down to discover that dozens of other girls from all parts of the country had had the same idea. They flock here in droves. The majority are quickly sent home with fleas in their ears. But I was accepted. I suppose you’d say, you idealist, that there was something fine in this crusade of women to serve under the banner of pure intelligence and skill. But that’s not the half of it, dearie. There’s sex in it too. But not in my case. There’s sex in everything, isn’t there, like those horrid little bugs under damp wood. You’d understand what I mean if you could hear the nurses talking amongst themselves. Our God, the doctor, is the sole topic. But not much about his intelligence and skill. Not that you’d notice! Oh well, I suppose he’s only human. If you were to believe them, he’s a monster! Thank God! I’m no idealist! I’ve got no illusions to be shattered.
My family as you may guess, kicked up a horrid clamor at the idea of my entering for training here. The poor dears! I suppose itwasa shock! As usual, I was called absolutely hard, unfeeling, etc. However, they did not say the final word to prevent my coming, suspecting perhaps, an alternative even more dreadful. I didn’t tell them until my bag was packed, and I was ready to walk out of the house. Thus the scene was confined to one tempestuous half hour. I hadn’t told a soul else. Of course I have been getting letters in sheaves since I arrived. Sickening, isn’t it, how people give themselves away when they take their pens in hand? One or two of my friends wrote praising me for the step I had taken. Those letters infuriated me. I mean, that anybody should have the cheek to impute pious motives to me. I wrote deliberately insulting replies. Yet I suppose you’d call them my best friends. You don’t need to tell me that I am acting a bad part. I know it. How can I help myself? I have heard nothing from you. Perhaps you didn’t know where I was, since it has been kept out of the papers.
As a probationer they have set me to work cleaning up the diet kitchens, dispensaries, etc. I have learned to scrub. Actually! Right down on my marrow bones with brush and pail. If the Avenue could see me now! We work from seven to seven. It’s a ghastly grind, because they deliberately overwork us at first in order to weed out the weak sisters. Well, I’m strong. I can stand it, but I’m getting as gaunt as an alley cat. On my afternoons off, I dress up in my most flaunting clothes, and rouge my cheeks, and sally forth.—And then I come back again! Never let anybody persuade you that there’s any dignity in filthy labor! Nor that it conduces to serenity of mind! I wouldn’t mind if there was anyusein it. Oh, God! how I hate this place! I can’t imagine why I ever came here. I can’t give it up either, after all the fuss that everybody has kicked up. The girls of my lot here have made a sort of hero out of me. They’re poor creatures. This is bad for me, because it leads me into a swagger. I’ve been in hot water more than once. I can’t stomach these head nurses, etc. Take a barren, starved woman, and give her authority over a lot of blooming, sniggering girls, and the result is hellish.
Life seems to lead us into one trap after another. You notice I blame life. I’m so damn conceited. I suppose that’s what the matter with me. In my heart I still think there’s nobody in the world quite like me. Yet I hate myself too! You shook me a little, and I can’t thank you for it. Didn’t shake me hard enough, I guess. It hasn’t done any good; it’s only made life infinitely harder. I wish I’d never met you! Of course I don’t quite mean that. Once I was happy. Lord! what rosy illusions I had about life and love and playing the game. That was my slogan: To Play the Game! I never noticed that I was apt to make the rules to fit my own desires. Now I have flopped into a sort of sink where everything is smeary. . . . I grind my teeth and snarl. I have discovered that I am cowardly, too. That’s the bitterest pill of all. For if I could, I’d shut my eyes and eat lotuses. I would! I would! I’d crawl back into my fool’s paradise on any terms, only the crystal dome is busted. I know there is no escapethatway, and I can’t face the other.
Burn this Old Top, and forget me.
Yours,
Elaine.
South Washington Square.
Dear Elaine:
When I read your letter my impulse was to jump on the first train. The pull was awful! A cry for help fromyou! Very likely you would deny now that it was a cry for help. You carefully avoided mentioning the things that were at the back of your mind. But I could read them. Don’t worry; I’m not going to drag them into the light. Call it just a cry of pain, then. I know what the pressure must have been that forced it from your lips.
But you see I have not come; and I am not coming. From the first my better sense warned me that it would only make things worse. If I saw you I would only lose my head, and babble weak, emotional stuff that would humiliate me, and disgust you. That’s the writer’s penalty. It is my business to express vicarious feelings. When my own heart froths up I am helpless. That arouses your contempt. What you do not consider is, that at the center of all this flutter there may be a firm core, worthy of your respect. I suffer horribly from the inability to express my feelings thoughtlessly. By staying away from you, perhaps I can remain a sort of fixed point in your confused horizon. The fact that you wrote to me at such a time shows that you regard me in some such light. I must take what satisfaction I can out of the assurance that you could not have let yourself go with anybody else like that. You know these things already. The ghastly part is, that knowing them doesn’t alter the situation. All we can do is to make private signals to each other across the gulf. So I am not coming. To see you now; to have you shrink from my touch, would about finish me. I am glad you let yourself go by letter, and not in speech. I could not have endured that! If I grovelled and stammered at your feet, your last illusion, which is me, would be gone.
I tried to write you last night, but I was too much confused. I was blind. I am not the one to help you. The only way I can help you is by being baldly honest. I had to force myself to think. Do not despise the man who is forced to stop and think when his feelings are rushing him away. It is the need of my nature. It is the one thing I have to hang on to in this whirling chaos. And the feelings are not necessarily any the less genuine. At least I am never finally deceived by the sound of my own roaring.
I walked all night. I don’t know that I’m any clearer in my mind this morning because of it, but I’m dog tired. I’m beyond the point of considering what I say. I tore up half a dozen letters last night. This one has just got to go, and God help us both. Whatever I say, or do not say, it will not mend the situation. One things stands out starkly: the touch of my hand revolts you. You made that fatally clear. Therefore, I’ve got to stay away from you. What did you write to me for? I can’t help you. I’m a man, the same as that other. I can’t be your confessor. You are contemptuous of my manhood. I’m not even going to try to give you any advice. Coming from me it would sound hollow. If you did what I told you to, you would just blame me for all the pain which followed. There’s got to be pain anyway. You’ve got to make up your mind what to do, and swallow the pain; just as I’ve got to swallow my pain. We haven’t had the best of luck, either of us. Well, I won’t die of it, and neither will you. I am in a deeper hell at this moment than you will ever know. You, at least, have kept yourself taut, while I have been wallowing. With no excuse; no excuse! Your letter coming at such a moment—Oh, well, I’ve said enough. I loathe myself.
Wilfred.
It was Wilfred’s newspaper that informed him of the romantic sudden marriage in St. Louis of Miss Elaine Sturges to Mr. Joseph Kaplan, both of New York. The popular society belle (so the account ran) tiring of the empty round of gaiety, and determined to do something useful in life, had gone to St. Louis without telling any of her friends of her intention, and had quietly entered the —— Hospital as a nurse. It was rumored that family opposition to the Boy Wonder of Wall Street may have had something to do with her sudden decision. The Sturgeses were one of the proudest families in New York, whereas young Mr. Kaplan was very much the self-made man, as everybody knew.
However that might be, Mr. Kaplan had finally learned of the whereabouts of his lost lady, and applying the same downright methods that had characterized his meteoric rise to fortune, had taken the first train to St. Louis. When he called at the Hospital, he had been refused permission to see Miss Sturges, since she was on duty. Nothing daunted, he refused to leave the place until she was produced, and the authorities were forced to yield. Miss Sturges was called out of the ward. A few rapid whispered words were sufficient. All in her nurse’s uniform as she was, Mr. Kaplan bundled her into a taxicab, and they were driven to the nearest preacher. . . . And so on, and so on, for a column or more. . . . All the world loves a lover! . . . The honeymoon was being spent in Southern Pines. Later the happy pair would sail for Italy. . . .
Wilfred felt no surprise upon reading this, nor any strong emotion. He had been through that. Just a bitter sickness of heart. “Sothatis what it comes to!” he said to himself. Well, I suppose I may consider myself cured.
Uponhis return to town in September, one of the first persons Wilfred met was Jessie Dartrey. She belonged to the Fifty-Ninth street crowd, though she herself had no pretensions either artistic or literary. She and Frances Mary Lore were great friends. Not exactly a pretty girl, Jessie had a highly individual charm. Long, dark eyes, and a crooked mouth of great sweetness. Wilfred liked her she was “such a little woman.” What was the right word for her; doughty? peppery? At any rate, discourse with her was stimulating. Wilfred had the impression that she cherished a particular scorn for himself; but he did not mind, it was so amusingly expressed. When Jessie was roused, she talked purest Saxon.
He met her on the Avenue as he was returning from a fruitless call at Frances Mary’s flat. He had found the glass in the door dusty; and a faded card still in place, with the tenant’s summer address.
“Hello!” said Wilfred. “I’ve just been up to see if Frances Mary was back.”
Jessie’s expressive mouth tightened for a flash at the mention of her friend’s name, and Wilfred wondered what was up. Had the two quarreled? “No,” said Jessie, readily. “She won’t be back for another month. The hills are too fine to leave, she writes. And her work is coming well.”
“Hard on us,” he said lightly.
Again that flicker of intense disapproval across Jessie’s face.
“Come and have tea somewhere,” urged Wilfred. “I’m just back myself. I’m starving for a little town talk.”
“So even I will do?” she said with heavy sarcasm.
Is she jealous? thought Wilfred. What a rum start that would be! “Your reasoning is faulty as usual,” he said. “There is great virtue in an accidental encounter. It has changed the fate of Kingdoms!”
“Sorry, I can’t give you the change to prove it,” said Jessie. “I’m booked for tea at a house in Forty-Seventh street. You can walk to the door with me if you want.”
He turned around, and accompanied her.
Presently she said with a sharp, sidelong glance of the sloe-black eyes: “You’re changed since I saw you.”
“How?” he asked, agreeably flattered.
“More conceited than ever!” said Jessie, suddenly changing her mind.
That was Jessie’s way. She had decided to conceal her real thought. In order to raise a dust, she rattled on: “You always look at me as much as to say: ‘Oh, mumma! look what the cat’s brought in!’ ”
Wilfred laughed, and felt uneasy. What had she seen? Was his face thus easily to be read in the afternoon sunshine of the Avenue? He made haste to give Jessie a humorous account of the boarding-house in the country that he had discovered for himself, and could not recommend. Jessie punctuated the story with scornful little snorts of laughter, shooting glances of her bright eyes into his face, that fairly snapped with some feeling mysterious to Wilfred.
Arriving before the house where she was expected, they paused at the foot of the steps. Said Wilfred, concluding his story:
“Above all, avoid a high-brow boarding-house. Intellectual table-talk is no compensation for watery hash.”
At that Jessie exploded. It was not a loud explosion, but it had force. “You make me sick, Wilfred! Does that reach you? I’d like to smack your grinning face . . . !”
“Why . . . go ahead!” said Wilfred, astonished, but grinning still.
“Don’t speak to me! Or you’ll make me say something I’ll regret! You’re a fool, do you hear? All men are fools, and you’re the greatest! Oh, I’d like to take you down a peg! I’d like to do something that would reallyhurtyou! But you’ve got no feelings! You’re just a conceited grinner! Stand there and laugh at me, do! Your mouth’s too big; why stretch it wider? Oh, you’re such a fool it’s past all bearing!”
And with that, she scampered up the steps without a backward look.
Wilfred walked home thoughtfully. He was not in the least angered at Jessie, for her tirade had touched no sore spot. There had been something beautiful in it; a human who could let all fly like that. Oh, Jessie was as sound as an apple! He supposed that her scorn would do him good; there was no tinge of contempt in it. But what on earth was biting her? He was obliged to reject the imputation of jealousy. She had rejoiced in showing him that he had no power overher. He carefully went over her words, but without obtaining any clue. Her speech had the quality of pure vituperation, which bears no relation to the thing at issue. “Fool” was simply a generic term for one who utterly disgusted you.
Then a light began to break over Wilfred, and he became more thoughtful still. How strange if it should bethat! he thought. . . . He slipped into a dream.
Whenin the course of time, Frances Mary’s door was opened to Wilfred, he experienced a disagreeable let-down. She was quite unchanged; just as good-looking; just as comradely. It was an offense in his eyes now. It might as well have been Stanny or Jasper; there was no thrill in it. What a fool he had been to let himself imagine things! . . . Why was he unable to fall in love with Frances Mary? It was because there was no trace of sex-consciousness in her to arouse a like feeling in him. In other words it was her finest quality which put him off. Same old vicious circle!
He was a little discomposed to find Jessie Dartrey sitting demurely in the warm-colored living-room. But her manner had undergone a metamorphosis. This afternoon the downright creature was almost anxiously friendly. Wilfred grinned at her mockingly; but even so, could not rouse her to battle. He interpreted her changed attitude as a plea to allow the little scene between them to be forgotten and buried—and especially not to let Frances Mary know about it. He was quite willing. He liked Jessie fine. Very soon she went.
Frances Mary brought out the tea-things; moving about the room in her large, graceful fashion. She was telling Wilfred about her summer in the Vermont hills. She had found a tiny shack, where she had lived alone, doing her own housekeeping. There were three delightful children who brought her supplies from the farmer’s nearby. Jean Ambrose and Aurora Page had had a house in the neighborhood. Frances Mary had made a new friend in a painter who had come to board at the farmer’s; a diffident girl, who had come out wonderfully in the end. Other girls had visited Jean and Aurora, who possessed a spare room.
An Adamless Eden thought Wilfred, with a tinge of scorn.
Frances Mary told Wilfred briefly, of the completed novel she had brought back with her. It was the story of a woman who had married too late. She did not suggest on this occasion that Wilfred might help her with criticism. He felt a little jealous and sore. Will I ever have the constancy to write a whole book? he asked himself with a sinking heart.
In return he told her about the genteel boarding-house; and about his long walks over the Ramapo Mountains, which had reduced his mind to a state of comfortable vacuity.
“How is your work?” she asked. “Hasn’t it been coming well?”
“It’s been going well,” he answered with a laugh. “I sold four stories in the Spring. That is how I was able to go to the country. I’ve got rid of three more since. I’ve been reeling them off.”
Frances Mary glanced at him, to see how this was to be taken.
“Oh, I know they’re putrid,” said Wilfred. “I’ve discovered the combination. You take a thoroughly nice fellow, and a thoroughly nice girl, and you invent difficulties to separate them; then you remove the difficulties. There are three old fables that you can work ad lib; the Cinderella motive; the Ugly Duckling Motive; and the Prince in Disguise. Work in a bit of novelty into the setting, and your story is hailed as Original; a sure go! That’s the sort of thing they fill the backs of the magazines with; they’ve got to have a lot of it.”
Frances Mary said nothing.
“Well, I had to be writing something,” he said; “or I’d have gone clean off my chump. That was the best I could fish up out of myself. The old keenness has gone.”
“How about the mountains?”
“The mountains did things tome,” he said flippantly; “but I couldn’t throwthem!”
“Isn’t there good material in your social experiences last winter?”
“No,” said Wilfred quickly. Fearful of betraying his inward shiver, he added: “It’s been done too often. . . . There’s no lack of material. The lack is in me.”
She said no more on the subject.
Wilfred was sitting beside a little table covered with a scarf of coffee-colored Italian silk in alternate stripes, shiny and dull. On the table were some of Frances Mary’s precious gim-cracks. She loved little objects of all sorts, if they had beauty. On this table, a row of books still in their paper wrappers; a white Chinese bowl, decorated with red fish, and filled with apples; a small censer of pierced silver; an enamelled snuffbox; some miniature ivory grotesques; a bit of cloisonné. Wilfred knew every object in the room.
Opposite him, sat Frances Mary by the tea-table, watching the kettle, which at this season did its work suspended over an alcohol flame. With her bright hair banded round her head in a style of her own; and wearing a soft draped dress the same color as her hair, what a grateful sight to the eye! Purely feminine; ladylike—horrible word for a lovely quality. What was the color of her hair? Wilfred had always termed it sorrel, but was dissatisfied with the word. Now the right word leaped into his mind; fallow! Of course! the color of the fallow deer! Fallow! a delicious word!—But Frances Mary’s veiled level glance and reticent lips rejected passion. She seemed less sympathetic to him than usual.
In the silence Wilfred saw the abyss yawning at his feet, and shutting his eyes, leaped. His limbs were palsied; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He said stammeringly:
“Frances Mary, how about you and I getting married?”
She looked at him quickly, her face dimpling with laughter. “Why, Wilfred! Just like that! . . . You’re not in love with me!”
“I’m fed up with love!” cried Wilfred, bitterly, before he thought of the implications of his speech. Panic seized him. “With the idea of love,” he hastily added, becoming aware at the same moment, that he was only making matters worse.
Frances Mary’s lashes were lowered. Her face showed no other change. There was a silence. Having taken the leap, and not having met with annihilation, Wilfred began to discover resources in himself. After all, the whole truth had to come out; and it didn’t so much matter if it came wrong end first.
“I don’t expect you to give me an answer out of hand,” he went on. “We must talk it out. I know that this must appear to you like just another of my artificial, self-conscious flights, but if you will only have a little patience with me, I will convince you.”
“Could one marry from conviction?” she asked lightly.
“Yes!” he cried. “That’s the very point! The notion that passion must decide is fatal. I know it! I know it!”
“You may be right,” she said with a half smile that he could not interpret. “By all means let us talk it out!” Her serene glance was raised again; but it did not rest on Wilfred. She was looking at the kettle, meditatively. “If you do not love me, why do you want to marry me?”
“Idolove you,” said Wilfred. “But not. . . .”
“Not passionately,” she quickly interposed, smiling and looking at him full; an extraordinary look of remote kindness.
Wilfred was silent. He was being put in the wrong, though he knew he was right.
“Well, your reasons?” she asked.
“You are the finest woman I know,” he said quickly. This was one of the questions he had imagined her asking. “I respect and admire you. My instinct tells me you will grow in my respect and admiration as long as I live. That’s the only thing that could hold me.”
She smiled again. He felt resentfully, that she was reading him through and through. It wasn’t fair, because he was all at sea respecting her. Still, everything had to come out!
“You feel that it is essential you should be held,” said Frances Mary, dryly.
“Oh Fanny, you make me feel so young!”
Again that smile from a distance. The kettle boiled; but instead of making tea, she put out the light. She looked about her. Fetching a little raffia basket, she commenced to sew a lace edging to a scrap of white stuff.
“To live with somebody you trusted!” said Wilfred, moved by his own words. “Somebody you could be yourself with; to whom you could reveal your innermost thoughts! To share the same tastes and pleasures! Somebody who could help you, and whom you might help a little—you have said it of me. Wouldn’t that be happiness?”
“You have pictured it all out!” she said smiling.
“Yes, I have!” he returned, goaded. “I have thought about it, and dreamed about it! I know you laugh at my mixed mental processes, at the way I deceive myself; well, I laugh too! Just the same you can build on dreams as well as thoughts. The soft stuff fades; but something collects little by little, just from one’s having been deceived so often.”
She disregarded this. “You do not know me,” she said quietly. “Nobody knows me. I have made a business of concealing myself. Even in my stories. Everything I write is just . . . bravura! . . . You only imagine those fine things about me. Nobody is any better than anybody else—in some ways. If you thought you were getting a paragon you’d be frightfully sold . . . so would I!”
“Not a paragon,” said Wilfred, smiling in his turn. “I know your faults.”
“What are they?” she challenged.
“You are afraid of life. You hate your own emotions. You dissect them while they are alive. You are much too refined. Occasionally you ought to be beaten. You have lived too long in your mind; you ought to give your blood a chance!”
“What makes you say that?” she demanded, startled and affronted.
Wilfred shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “It just came out.”
She quickly regained her equanimity. “Not bad as far as it goes,” she said. “But you haven’t touched on the worst things.”
Her quiet bitterness struck a little fear into Wilfred’s breast.Wasthere an unsuspected worst in Frances Mary? Oh, well, he was committed now; no choice but to struggle on. “You have one quality that I hold to through all,” he said; “your disinterestedness. The finest quality of all!”
Her smile became still more remote. “Oh, it’s easy to be disinterested about things that don’t touch you too closely,” she said.
This was a facer for Wilfred. He strove not to show it. “I’ll take my chance of your soundness,” he said.
She shook her head. “Passion, preposterous as it is, is the only justification.”
“I could love you—if you gave me a chance,” he said sullenly.
Frances Mary laughed suddenly and merrily.
“I know I’m ridiculous,” he said blushing crimson; “but I mean to see it through. It’s all got to come out, absurdities and all.”
“Why marry at all?” she asked.
“I want you.”
She looked at him.
“Well . . . need you.”
“As a sort of antidote to passion, I take it,” said Frances Mary softly. All the kindness had suddenly gone out, leaving her soft face pinched and awry.
Wilfred was stung beyond endurance. “Yes!” he cried, jumping up. “An antidote to passion! I’ve seen it and what it ends in. Am I criminal or foolish to dream of something better? I looked on you as a woman above prejudice. It’s easy enough to make a joke of me because I’m not playing the old false game with you. You’ve got everything on your side, the whole weight of the ages! But I won’t be so easily shut up now; my foolishness has taught me something. There’s something to be said for my way, though I’m alone in it. It’s my real self I’m offering you; though I sound like a fool.”
She had risen too, and walked away to a table between the windows where she stood with her back turned. “I’m sorry, Wilfred,” she said in a muffled voice. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
When she apologized, it took all the fire out of him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said flatly.
Presently, she turned around; but, the light being behind her, he could not see her face clearly. “Your position is sound,” she said, “and you have stated it better than you think. . . . Still, what you ask is impossible. For two reasons; first, I am not the woman you think I am; second, I must think of myself a little.”
The cold voice completed Wilfred’s demoralization. “I only admit the second reason,” he said gloomily. “Of course you must think of yourself. I am seekingmygood.”
“Why should I marry you?”
“If you put it to me, the Lord knows!”
“I do not think you are the finest man I ever knew. In fact I have no illusions about you.”
“So much the better,” he mumbled.
“Then why? why?”
“Well, I thought. . . .”
“You thought I loved you?” she asked quickly.
“Not so far as that. I thought perhaps you might come to. There was sympathy. . . .”
She came away from the front table. Her hands were pressed against her breast; her face tormented. To Wilfred, who was wrought up too, that seemed natural. “Wilfred, tell me plainly what you have been doing these last months,” she said breathlessly.
“I’ll tell you,” he said quickly, “I . . .”
A cry escaped her. “No! Don’t tell me. . . . !”
But he was already under way. “I fell in love, as they put it, with a woman who preferred Joe Kaplan to me,” he said bitterly. “You know all about Joe Kaplan. She married him. Well, that cured that. Afterwards I slid into an affair with a woman whom I despised. That soon ran its course. Then I went to the country and tried to haul myself up by my own boot-straps without succeeding. That’s all.”
Frances Mary had returned to her chair. She was sitting forward in an attitude unnatural to her, her head lowered. “You experienced passion . . . for a woman you despised?” she murmured.
“Yes,” said Wilfred. “That’s the point I was trying to make. That’s how easy it is. . . .”
There was a silence. Then Frances Mary said in an uncertain voice: “You had better go.”
Wilfred stared. “I won’t go for any such reason as that!” he said hotly. “Are you raising the banner of conventional morality!You. . . !”
She said: “Suppose I told you thatI. . . !”
“Rubbish!” cried Wilfred. “It would be better for you if you had!”
“Your ideas are loathsome!” cried Frances Mary with unexpected loudness.
“This is what I get for trying to be honest!”
“Honest!”
Simultaneously it struck them what exhibitions they were making of themselves. They laughed in bitter vexation, and fell silent. They avoided each other’s eyes.
“I apologize for shouting at you,” mumbled Wilfred.
Frances Mary did not apologize, though she had shouted too.
Presently something changed in her. She looked at Wilfred queerly. Settling back in her chair, she raised her head. “Wilfred, kiss me,” she said in a colorless voice.
He looked at her sharply. Her face was drawn and ugly. His instinct bade him refuse; but she had told him to do it. He was absurdly under her influence. He went to her with a hangdog air, and printed a cold kiss on her lips.
A little groan of rage was forced from Frances Mary. She sprang up so suddenly that her chair was knocked over backwards. All in the one movement, she fetched Wilfred such a smack on the cheek that his sight was blotted out for a moment. He fell back, covering the place, staring at her open-mouthed, clownishly. Frances Mary burst into tears; a catastrophic breakdown; her face working as absurdly and uglily as a small child’s; the tears fairly spurting from her eyes. Wilfred quickly recovered himself. He had to repress a desire to laugh. A load was lifted from his breast. She could feel! Frances Mary put her hands over her face, and turned away from him.
“Go! Go!” she murmured.
Wilfred walked to the other end of the room, and sat down on the couch. “I won’t go till I get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“You see . . . you see . . .” she gasped out in her torn voice.
She loves me! thought Wilfred in a maze. She feels passion forme! What a fatuous brute I have been! . . . Still, the bars had to be smashed down one way or another!
“Now you see what kind of a woman I am! . . . You’d better go!”
“I don’t think any of the worse of you,” said Wilfred, smiling to himself.
Careless of her ugly, tear-stained face, she flung around, and stamped her foot. “Don’t sit there and sneer!” she cried. “It’s intolerable!”
“Sneer . . . !” he echoed indignantly.
“Disinterested!” cried Frances Mary. “Oh, Heavens! . . . I don’t think much of it! Your so-called disinterestedness is revolting to me! You talk by rote! Prating of love and passion! What do you know about either? You’re light! What is passion to you? An interesting experience! You have suffered, you say. You’re quite healed, aren’t you, and ready for fresh experiments? You know nothing of the agony of repression. For years! For years! Everything comes out of you like a child’s babbling. You know nothing of the wolves that tear. . . . Oh, why don’t you go?”
Wilfred recognized the element of truth in her portrait of him, but was not dismayed. He could no longer repress the delighted grin. “I’m not afraid of your wolves,” he said. “. . . I hail them!”
“Be quiet!” cried Frances Mary. But the new quality in his grin arrested her. She stared; her angry face all at a pause.
Wilfred stood up.
“Don’t come near me!” she cried sharply.
He laughed outright. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go. But this is not the end, of course.”
She drew the old veil over her face. But it was somewhat torn now. Picking up the fallen chair, she set it on its feet. “I’ll never marry you now!” she said with extreme bitterness. “However it might be for your good! Women can’t forget things as conveniently as men seem to do. This scene would always be present with me. Even when you began to love me—as no doubt you would! no doubt you would! having resolved upon it. I should always be remembering how you decided beforehand that it would be a fine thing for you if you could bring yourself to it!”
She doesn’t mean a word of it! he thought with infinite relief and delight. She’s no better than me! He said: “You’re talking pure romantic nonsense! You might have got it out of one of my stories! . . . You’ve got something to learn too!”
“From your experience?” she asked with bitter nostrils.