Part 7 (2/2)
”As for New York,” she said with a lift of the eyebrows and a quick tilt of her head, ”I don't give a ... d.a.m.n,”--softly. ”As for your coming, I didn't need ask. When a man has followed a girl wherever she has gone, to sea, to other countries, for four years, there is nothing surprising in the fact that he should trail her only two-thirds of the way across this continent....
”But it's no use, d.i.c.k. I made up my mind that I would not marry you before I came here. I tried to convince you of the honesty of my purpose in my last letter, but perhaps I failed because I wasn't truly honest with myself then. I thought I was through, but, in reality, I was only planning a variation of the old way of doing things.
”Now I'm finished, absolutely, with the rot I've called life!”
She lifted her chin and shook her head in emphasis. The man laughed.
”You amuse as much as you thrill me,” he said, looking at her hungrily.
”That's a splendid way to help a fellow: to laugh at the first effort I make to justify my existence.”
”I want to help you, Jane. I've always wanted to help you. I've put myself and what I have at your disposal. I've not only done that, but I've begged and pleaded and schemed to make you take them. You'd never listen when I talked love to you.
”You've always seemed to be a peculiarly material-minded girl and I had to play on that. But when I've talked ease and comfort and luxury to you, you know that I've meant more than just those things. It's been love, Jane ... love in every syllable.”
He rose and walked to stand before her.
”That hurt,” she said, with a sharp little laugh. ”That ...
materialism. But I believe it was only too true. It had to be, you see.
It was the only thing I could see to live for. There was the one thing I missed, the thing I had expected to find. It was the thing you talked about: Love. I wanted love, tried to find love and at twenty-five gave it up. That's a horrible thing, d.i.c.k. Giving that up at twenty-five!”
”But I have offered you love, continually, for four years.”
”d.i.c.k ... oh, d.i.c.k! You don't know what that means. You showed that when you selected your tactics: trying to give me things that I could taste and touch and see.
”If it had been love, the real thing, that you felt, you'd have overwhelmed me with it, you would not have allowed another consideration to enter, you'd have swept me off my feet with making me understand that it was love. You wouldn't have talked places and motors, luxury and aimlessness.”
Her voice shook. She was hurt, bordering on anger.
”You pa.s.s the buck,” he retorted evenly. ”You've told me, time after time, that love didn't matter to you.”
”Not the sort you offered. It never could.”
”There's another kind, then?”
”Somewhere,”--with an emphatic nod.
”You think you can find the sort you're looking for here?”
”I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet, but I know there is something else I can find.”
”And that?”
”Myself!”--stoutly.
He threw back his head with a hearty laugh.
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