Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/12

 deepest hatred, and of tremendous love. She had a strange, wild appeal for men. They couldn't resist her. She decided that she would make a deliberate play for John Rott and when she had him under her control, she would make his life rottener than ever.

Some day, she decided, she would find Whitman Manners, and when she did she'd kill him. Wild and tumultuous were her thoughts. She did not cry. She did not pray. If she showed weakness she would be ground in the mills of the gods.

followed were like a hideous dream. An endless procession of men, a nightmare of misery. Mary scarcely knew how she lived through those awful hours. But the human body is a strange machine. In time it can adapt itself to almost anything.

But the soul, unlike the body, cannot be altered so easily. Under certain conditions it is best that it be destroyed. Memory is a curse, regret is a sharp knife turning about in an open wound.

Mary tried hard not to think of the past. She dreaded equally to peer into the future. Whenever she was free she read books, endlessly. When she was absorbed in a story at least her mind was not upon herself.

Half of everything she earned was turned over to her, less charges for her room and board and for clothes and other incidental things that she ordered. She could send out for anything she wished but she was not allowed to leave the house. She was a love-slave in a house where there was ho love. And for everything she needed she was overcharged outrageously.

But Mary made no complaint, nor did John Rott complain about her. She was attractive to men. She had many lovers. She was a competent actress. She received a great many tips