Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/236

 Then came the incident which decided her. She was starting down the stairs one day, those stairs which led directly into the lobby, when she saw a girl come in. She came in almost furtively, and that she did not see Kay at once was due to the semi-darkness inside and the blinding glare without. Kay knew her at once, and stopped, and so she saw her leave a letter with Ed and start out again. When at the door she turned again she saw Kay coming down, and she hesitated. Then she threw her head up and went on.

Kay did not go out, after all. She went upstairs and stationed herself at a window, and there followed one of those small secret duels between women which are at once tragic and ludicrous. At the noon hour Clare, convinced that she had been discovered, crossed the street to the hotel, to find Kay talking to Ed, and precipitately fled. Kay's hands were like ice, and her eyes were burning, but she was determined to know where she stood; if life had played its final trick on her. But she was quiet enough when Tom came in and found her in their room.

"Well, did you get your letter?"

He had sat down and was rubbing his swollen ankle, but now he stopped.

"What letter?"

"I thought Ed said there was a letter for you."

For an instant their glances clashed. Then he went back to his rubbing.

"No letter for me. If you don't believe it you can look in my pockets."

They had both lied! A sense of shame overcame her, as well as wild jealousy. He had had his letter, and he had not dared to bring it into the room. He had deliberately deceived her. He had stood downstairs in the lobby and destroyed it before he came to her.

Lying sleepless in the hot bed that night while Tom slept, she faced the knowledge that she had given all she had and had not even bought security with it; that while women had certainly occupied only intervals in Tom's life, these intervals had been recurrent and probably violent, and, even granting his love for her, that they might occur again.