Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/24

 but her voice was cold. "He shall make her real."

"No"—it seemed to me that as he spoke Jimmie drew away from her hand—"I am not going to rewrite it, Elise. I'm tired of it."

"Jimmie!"

"I'm tired of it"

"Finish it, and then you'll be free"

"Shall I ever be free?" He stood up and turned his head from side to side, as if he sought some way of escape. "Shall I ever be free? I sometimes think that you and I will stick to this old house until we grow as dry as dust. I want to live, Elise! I want to live!"

But Elise was not ready to let Jimmie live. To her, Jimmie the artist was more than Jimmie the lover. I may have been unjust, but she seemed to me a sort of mental vampire, who was sucking Jimmie's youth. Duncan Street snorted when I told him what I thought. Elise was a pretty woman, and a pretty woman in the eyes of men can do no wrong.

"You'll see," I said, "what she'll do to him."

The situation was to me astounding. Here was Life holding out its hands to Elise, glory of youth demanding glorious response, and she, incredibly, holding back. In spite of my gray hair and stiff 18