Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/91

 But other people are thinking. We will hear if anything more happens. You'd better sit down there again, hadn't you?"

She had good sense, Gregg noticed; indeed, it was extraordinary how well she controlled herself, how little of the irresponsible she had indulged in. Now that he took time to observe her, he found her distinctly a person of marked individualities. His first impression of her as a woman lacking in the weakness and pliability which might be presumed of one in her situation had progressed to perception of more definite qualities of will and self-reliance than he often saw in women. Not for money, Gregg was sure, had she chosen to do what she had done. She had said she loved Hale; but, as Gregg went on talking with her, as impersonally as possible about what the doctors had discovered and about Mr. Hale's chances for recovery, she offered none of the usual, stale, socialistic "free love" excuses or arguments for her way of living.

Gregg was rather relieved at that; they always made him disgusted; at least the sort of people who put them forth always were to him a loathsome lot. This woman, whatever she was, had nothing to do with that lot. Her way of living asked for no approval of others; it was her own for reasons sufficient to herself and she did not trouble to defend or explain it further than to mention that she was down town, regularly, on business days; for she was a life-insurance agent. Then, forming a sudden decision, she made her sole direct reference to her life at the flat:

"Charles Hale and I split expenses here and everywhere; he paid his; I paid mine. Fifty-fifty. That's the one fact I care to have you, and members of his family, know. We went fifty-fifty from the first. I