Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/37

Rh not sure now whether I intended to or not. If the chance had come I'm afraid I might have bolted. But the chance never came. There was one condition, of course, which he very well knew I'd always insist upon. And he was wise enough to respect that. He kept me as guarded from the uglier side of life, in fact, as though I'd been his own daughter. And my sliding over into that newer world came so gradually, like a vestibuled Limited sliding out of the yards into the open, that I was under way, full tilt before I quite realized what was happening. Then the sheer movement of the thing, the activity of it, the excitement of it, got into my blood, and the need of Bud himself got fixed in my mind.

I learned to look at life as he did. I dropped into the trick of talking as he did. I got so I could face a tight fade without a quaver, and do my gay-cat part in sloughing our make as easily as rolling off a log. And all the while it seemed a sort of game, which could of course be dropped when the league disbanded and the autumn leaves blew through the bleachers. It never dawned on me then that a woman must be only what she has been, that every year of her past is the link of a chain which drags forever at her heels. But, as I've already said, I was only a in those days.