Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/298

 she knew that she had struck at the weakest point in all his defense—the fear of a scandal. "You wouldn't do that!" he cried. "You couldn't—you couldn't behave like a common prostitute!"

"Loving one man is not behaving like a common prostitute. . . . I never loved any other."

"You couldn't bring such a disgrace on Sybil, even if you don't care for the rest of us."

("He knew, then, that I couldn't do such a thing, that I haven't the courage. He knows that I've lived too long in this world.") Aloud she said, "You don't know me, Anson. . . . In all these years you've never known me at all."

"Besides," he added quickly, "he wouldn't do such a thing. Such a climber isn't likely to throw over his whole career by running away with a woman. You'd find out if you asked him."

"But he is willing. He's already told me so. Perhaps you can't understand such a thing." When he did not answer, she said ironically, "Besides, I don't think a gentleman would talk as you are talking. No, Anson. . . . I don't think you know what the world is. You've lived here always, shut up in your own little corner." Rising, she sighed and murmured, "But there's no use in talk. I am going to bed. . . . I suppose we must struggle on as best we can . . . but there are times . . . times like to-night when you make it hard for me to bear it. Some day . . . who knows . . . there's nothing any longer to keep me. . . ."

She went away without troubling to finish what she had meant to say, lost again in an overwhelming sense of the futility of everything. She felt, she thought, like an idiot standing in the middle of an empty field, making gestures.