Part 31 (1/2)
She drew out the papers, sat holding them for a few moments without relinquis.h.i.+ng them. Then she raised her eyes to his, and a bright flush stained her face:
”Why should I not go to Paris by myself?” she demanded.
”You mean now? On this s.h.i.+p?”
”Yes. Why not? I have enough money to go there and study, haven't I?”
”Yes. But----”
”Why not!” she repeated feverishly, her grey eyes sparkling. ”I have three thousand dollars; I can't go back to Brookhollow and disgrace them. What does it matter where I go?”
”It would be all right,” he said, ”if you'd ever had any experience----”
”Experience! What do you call what I've had today!” She exclaimed excitedly. ”To lose in a single day my mother, my home--to go through in this city what I have gone through--what I am going through now--is not that enough experience? Isn't it?”
He said:
”You've had a rotten awakening, Rue--a perfectly devilish experience.
Only--you've never travelled alone----” Suddenly it occurred to him that his lively friend, the Princess Mistchenka, was sailing on the _Lusitania_; and he remained silent, uncertain, looking with vague misgivings at this girl in the armchair opposite--this thin, unformed, inexperienced child who had attained neither mental nor physical maturity.
”I think,” he said at length, ”that I told you I had a friend sailing on the _Lusitania_ tomorrow.”
She remembered and nodded.
”But wait a moment,” he added. ”How do you know that this--this fellow Brandes will not attempt to sail on her, also----” Something checked him, for in the girl's golden-grey eyes he saw a flame glimmer; something almost terrible came into the child's still gaze; and slowly died out like the afterglow of lightning.
And Neeland knew that in her soul something had been born under his very eyes--the first emotion of maturity bursting from the chrysalis--the flaming consciousness of outrage, and the first, fierce a.s.sumption of womanhood to resent it.
She had lost her colour now; her grey eyes still remained fixed on his, but the golden tinge had left them.
”_I_ don't know why you shouldn't go,” he said abruptly.
”I _am_ going.”
”All right! And if _he_ has the nerve to go--if he bothers you--appeal to the captain.”
She nodded absently.
”But I don't believe he'll try to sail. I don't believe he'd dare, mixed up as he is in a dirty mess. He's afraid of the law, I tell you.
That's why he denied marrying you. It meant bigamy to admit it.
Anyway, I don't think a fake ceremony like that is binding; I mean that it isn't even real enough to put him in jail. Which means that you're not married, Rue.”
”Does it?”
”I think so. Ask a lawyer, anyway. There may be steps to take--I don't know. All the same--do you really want to go to France and study art?
Do you really mean to sail on this s.h.i.+p?”
”Yes.”