Page:Flaming Youth black on red.pdf/19

 FLAMING

YOUTH

15

“The more fools they!” “Can’t I wring a confession out of you?” she teased. ‘Why haven’t you ever made love to me, Bob?” Too much afraid of losing what little I’ve got of you,” he returned sombrely. “How do you know you wouldn’t have got more? How do you know that I wouldn’t have given you—everything?” “Everything you could give wouldn’t be enough.” “Pig! You don’t want much, do you!” ‘Have you ever really cared for any of your partners in flirtation?” “You speak as if I’d had dozens,” she pouted. “Tt isn’t a question of the quantity but of the quality of your attachments. If I’d ever asked anything of you it would have been—well, romance.” He laughed quietly at himself. ‘Something you haven’t got to give. You see, I’m a romantic and you’re not. You’ve sought excitement, admiration, change. But not ‘the light that never was on land or sea.’ You’re adventurous and passionate, but not romantic. It’s quite a different order of thing.” And you’re brutal. Besides, you’re wrong; quite wrong.” “Am I?” His glance ranged the faces on the mantel. ‘Which one?”

- She gave him a swift smile.

“He isn’t there.

You

never saw him. His name was Cary Scott.” “Was? Is he dead?” “He’s out of my life;

or almost.

He’s married.

He

was hardly more than a boy when I knew him. Nine years ago in Paris. He was studying at the Polytechnique,

doing his post-graduate work and doing it brilliantly, I believe. He went mad over me. My fault; I meant him