Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/299

 You took my gifts and permitted an occasional caress to keep the fire in me. … Ah, I know all about you, Ruth. I sent back to your little college town. I know your pedigree. You're cut from the same pattern as your mother, only, she made a bargain and kept it. You let me go to the extent of purchasing a certain kind of trousseau. You made a bargain, and then you played the cheat. Yes, let us speak the truth while we're about it. And then that night at Juneau's you ran away from me without any explanation."

"Cheat? To a certain extent, yes. But do you want the real explanation? I will give it to you. When you put my coat on that night I saw you in the mirror. You smiled and winked at the head-waiter as if I'd been a woman you had just picked up in the street."

"So that was it!" Colburton sensed chagrin.

"Yes, that was it. I had up to that moment believed you really cared for me. I was very unhappy. I had failed in the great object of my life—I had failed utterly. I turned to you. I did not care what became of me. Up to the moment I looked into that mirror I was ready to go with you. I did not love you, but I might have. I would have kept to the letter of my bargain. Well, in the mirror I saw everything. I knew instantly the kind of man you were. You would not have kept to the letter of your bargain. And a little later I should have been no better than the the poor things who live in these houses until they go to the hospitals to die. But God did not