Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/204

 "Bessie!" John murmured huskily, after an interval.

"Don't speak to me, don't!" she commanded hoarsely, without turning her head.

John obeyed her so humbly and so completely that she began to wonder if he were still there, or if he had sunk through the ground in the shame and mortification which she knew well enough possessed him.

When she had wondered long enough, she turned and found him not only there but in a pose so abject and utterly remorseful that her heart softened until she felt the need of self-justification.

"You were my god," she urged. "You inspired me! I worshipped you! I thought you were as fine a man as my own father—and finer because you had a finer ambition. I thought you were grand, noble, strong!" Bessie stopped with her emphasis heavy upon the final word.

"Is not the strong man the one who has found in what his weakness lies?" John pleaded humbly.

But as before, his attempt at palliation seemed to anger her unaccountably, and she turned away again with feelings too intense for utterance—with, in fact, a dismal sense of the futility of utterance. She wanted to get away from John. She wished he would not stand there barring the door. She wished he would go while her back was turned. A sense of humiliation greater than had possessed him, she was sure, had come over her. If the lake in front had been sixty feet deep instead of six inches, she might have flung herself into it.

"But you love me!" pleaded John from behind her, his voice coming up out of depths.

"Do you think I would care how many actresses you lost your dizzy head over if I didn't?" retorted Bessie petulantly, and instantly would have given several worlds to recall the speech.

"No! No!" she continued, stamping her foot