Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/118

108 "I don't know four  five  What does it matter?"

"And once a week, for six weeks—?"

"Yes."

"And you took it all as a matter of course?"

"No: I hated it. But what could I do?"

"What could you do?"

"When our being together depended on it? Oh, Nick, how could you think I'd give you up?"

"Give me up?" he echoed.

"Well—doesn't our being together depend on—on what we can get out of people? And hasn't there always got to be some give-and-take? Did you ever in your life get anything for nothing?" she cried with sudden exasperation. "You've lived among these people as long as I have; I suppose it's not the first time—"

"By God, but it is," he exclaimed, flushing. "And that's the difference—the fundamental difference."

"The difference!"

"Between you and me. I've never in my life done people's dirty work for them—least of all for favours in return. I suppose you guessed it, or you wouldn't have hidden this beastly business from me."

The blood rose to Susy's temples also. Yes, she had guessed it; instinctively, from the day she had first visited him in his bare lodgings, she had been aware of his stricter standard. But how could she tell him that under his influence her