I thought I'd tell you how I'd
earned it, and that you'd be a little--proud with me about it, proud
that I could pay it back so soon."
She smiled a little over that, a smile he had to turn away from. But
this tortured smile shriveled in the flame of passion with which she
went on. "If I couldn't pay it back to-night, after this, I'd feel like
killing myself, or like--going out and earning it in the streets.
Because that's what you've made me to-night!"
He cried out her name at that, but she went on as if she hadn't heard;
only calm again--or so one might have thought from the sound of her
voice.
"I went away, you see, because I couldn't bear to have the love part of
your life without a sort of friendly partnership in the rest of it. But
I didn't know then that you could love me while you hated me, while you
felt that I'd unspeakably degraded myself and disgraced you. So that
while you loved me and had me in your arms, you felt degraded for doing
it. I didn't know that till now.
"I suppose I'll be glad some day that it all happened; that I met you
and loved you and had the babies, even though it's all had to end," she
shuddered again, "like this.
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