Part 16 (1/2)

She drew her hand away quickly and patted his cheek disapprovingly, as she might have patted a child's; then with a little, playful laugh, she said: ”don't be silly, you know I don't like it.”

Man of the world as he was, without scruples and usually reckless, he felt cowed. For a moment he sat moving his hands nervously; then he looked up and asked in a serious tone: ”Why didn't you marry me?”

”Because I liked you too well.”

”That is no answer.”

”Because I wanted to keep your love.”

”That is not true.”

”Well, because marriage is a business partners.h.i.+p, which, to be successful, requires a person of experience and a person of money. You had too much experience and I had no money, _le voila_.”

”You are a heartless flirt,” Duncan said, slowly and earnestly.

”That's what a man always says of a woman when he fails to make her love him.”

”You are a heartless flirt, I repeat,” he answered. ”You stole the best love in my heart; you crushed it and threw it aside like a flower which no longer pleased you.”

”Nonsense, Duncan, such poetic similes are ridiculous. Better say that love, to a man, is an apple of Sodom, fair to behold; but when he has it in his grasp it crumbles to sickening ashes.”

”You stole my love, Helen; a man never loves but once.”

”And in revenge, to use your metaphor, you have plucked and trampled under foot every flower within your reach. I know you, Duncan. It is only because I was stronger than the rest that I still bloom fair in your eyes.”

Duncan looked full into Helen's face with an injured expression in his eyes. ”Helen,” he said finally, ”'tis women like you who make us men distrust your s.e.x; who make us what we are.”

Helen returned his glance, and replied scornfully: ”No; it is men like you who drag us down. We women must go through life armed, like travelers of old, against the attacks of you highwaymen. If we are weak, we are robbed of our best possessions, and left helpless by the way; if we are strong and ward off your attacks, you take your revenge on those who fall into your unscrupulous hands. But that is moralizing, and I am no moralist; I take the world as it is.”

”Then why not take the pleasure in it?” said Duncan insinuatingly.

”Because it doesn't amuse me,” she answered coldly. ”I am not like other women, I suppose; at least, what you call pleasure disgusts me.”

”Then why have you let me be your friend so long?”

”Because you amuse me,” she replied carelessly. ”I like to see you bl.u.s.ter and go away, and then come back to me. Other women pander to you, but I don't; other women love you, but I don't.”

As Duncan listened to these words, a blush of anger came to his cheek.

He thought of how strong had been his influence over other women, and how weak he had always been in Helen's hands. ”After all, love is a game of strength,” he mused. He had been no better than a ball to be tossed about at pleasure, but he would throw off the spell of this woman, which had bound him so fast--he who thought he knew the world so well. An expression of firmness came into his face, and he said: ”I loved you once, Helen, but I hate you now.”

”I am glad,” she answered; ”now there is a chance that your pa.s.sion will be returned.”

Duncan did not reply. He left his seat beside her and walked slowly into the next room. Helen's eyes followed him. ”Silly boy,” she thought, ”I hope he will hate me; I might love him then.”

Long after the lights in the smoking-room had gone out, long after the laughter had ceased, Duncan slowly paced his room. His hands were deep in his pockets and he held a briar pipe between his lips. Occasionally he would take a draw at the pipe, and then watch the blue smoke curl gently upward and fade away in long, thin streaks; but all the time he was thinking over the part Helen Osgood had played in his life. ”She is right,” he said, half aloud; ”I do bl.u.s.ter and go away, and come back to her, and I will do it again. No, by Jove! I won't. A man can't forget that he has been played fast and loose with, and I would not be a man if I went back to that woman. I hate her. I hate her,” he repeated. ”She might have made a different man of me. I was young and might have taken life better, but she laughed me into the selfish brute I am. O, well,”

he sighed, as he thought of his past, ”I suppose I am no worse than those around me. We all worry over what might have been, but we don't take the pleasure that comes to us. A man's an a.s.s to break his neck for any woman. There are others in the world, good looking ones, too, who will love for the asking.” He returned his pipe to its case and closed it with a loud snap. ”I have been in the garden before,” he continued, ”and I will go there again and pluck the flowers that come in my path. I will hold them for a minute; then I will crush them and cast them aside, and I will laugh, too.”

CHAPTER XI.