Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/267

Rh had rehearsed afterward for hours and hours every slight swift touch of his hands, every long lingering pressure of his lips, with an unrestraint, an abandon that only a betrothal of marriage could make right. In her imagination Reba had been betrothed to Chadwick Booth ever since that night beside the sea; had been ready to face the possible disgrace of divorce without a quiver; had secretly, joyfully, wondered to herself, as higher and higher she built her castle, if she could create sometime, with him, something of the atmosphere that pervaded the Park home. Had gone into minute details.

Reba suddenly leaned forward in the broken old chair and buried her face in her hands! This horrible endless night was the culmination of all her dreams—this dirty bedroom, this stale smell of old tobacco, that room below, that woman down there with the red plaid skirt and disheveled hair whom she had caught a glimpse of, laughing and singing, perched on a man's knee—oh, the shame—the degrading shame of it!

As Reba sat and listened to the uproariousness in the bar-room below, she was lashed again and again by Chadwick Booth's casual explanation of his relations to her. Why, those creatures down there—that man and that woman were not annoyed by the discussion of domestic trivialities either! They also were not married, nor obliged to haggle about children. They too met for happiness' sake! What difference—what difference really between that woman down there and her—Reba Jerome?

"It's just as if I looked into a mirror, when I looked