"Then you wouldn't have destroyed my illusion.You wouldn't have killed my love."She grew deathly white; that was all.
"I don't mean that I don't love you still," he hurried on."But not in the same way.That's killed forever.""Are there different ways of loving?" she asked.
"How can I give you the love of respect and trust--now?""Don't you trust me--any more?"
"I couldn't.I simply couldn't.It was hard enough before on account of your birth.But now----Trust a woman who had been a--a--I can't speak the word.Trust you? You don't understand a man.""No, I don't." She looked round drearily.Everything in ruins.
Alone again.Outcast.Nowhere to go but the streets--the life that seemed the only one for such as she."I don't understand people at all....Do you want me to go?"She had risen as she asked this.He was beside her instantly.
"Go!" he cried."Why I couldn't get along without you.""Then you love me as I love you," Said she, putting her arms round him."And that's all I want.I don't want what you call respect.I couldn't ever have hoped to get that, being born as I was--could I? Anyhow, it doesn't seem to me to amount to much.
I can't help it, Rod--that's the way I feel.So just love me--do with me whatever you will, so long as it makes you happy.And Idon't need to be trusted.I couldn't think of anybody but you."He felt sure of her again, reascended to the peak of the moral mountain."You understand, we can never get married.We can never have any children.""I don't mind.I didn't expect that.We can _love_--can't we?"He took her face between his hands."What an exquisite face it is," he said, "soft and smooth! And what clear, honest eyes!
Where is _it?_ Where _is_ it? It _must_ be there!""What, Rod?"
"The--the dirt."
She did not wince, but there came into her young face a deeper pathos--and a wan, deprecating, pleading smile.She said:
"Maybe love has washed it away--if it was there.It never seemed to touch me--any more than the dirt when I had to clean up my room.""You mustn't talk that way.Why you are perfectly calm! You don't cry or feel repentant.You don't seem to care.""It's so--so past--and dead.I feel as if it were another person.And it was, Rod!"He shook his head, frowning."Let's not talk about it," he said harshly."If only I could stop thinking about it!"She effaced herself as far as she could, living in the same room with him.She avoided the least show of the tenderness she felt, of the longing to have her wounds soothed.She lay awake the whole night, suffering, now and then timidly and softly caressing him when she was sure that he slept.In the morning she pretended to be asleep, let him call her twice before she showed that she was awake.A furtive glance at him confirmed the impression his voice had given.Behind her pale, unrevealing face there was the agonized throb of an aching heart, but she had the confidence of her honest, utter love; he would surely soften, would surely forgive.As for herself--she had, through loving and feeling that she was loved, almost lost the sense of the unreality of past and present that made her feel quite detached and apart from the life she was leading, from the events in which she was taking part, from the persons most intimately associated with her.Now that sense of isolation, of the mere spectator or the traveler gazing from the windows of the hurrying train--that sense returned.But she fought against the feeling it gave her.
That evening they went to the theater--to see Modjeska in "Magda."Susan had never been in a real theater.The only approach to a playhouse in Sutherland was Masonic Hall.It had a sort of stage at one end where from time to time wandering players gave poor performances of poor plays or a minstrel show or a low vaudeville.But none of the best people of Sutherland went--at least, none of the women.The notion was strong in Sutherland that the theater was of the Devil--not so strong as in the days before they began to tolerate amateur theatricals, but still vigorous enough to give Susan now, as she sat in the big, brilliant auditorium, a pleasing sense that she, an outcast, was at last comfortably at home.Usually the first sight of anything one has dreamed about is pitifully disappointing.Neither nature nor life can build so splendidly as a vivid fancy.But Susan, in some sort prepared for the shortcomings of the stage, was not disappointed.From rise to fall of curtain she was so fascinated, so absolutely absorbed, that she quite forgot her surroundings, even Rod.And between the acts she could not talk for thinking.Rod, deceived by her silence, was chagrined.He had been looking forward to a great happiness for himself in seeing her happy, and much profit from the study of the viewpoint of an absolutely fresh mind.It wasn't until they were leaving the theater that he got an inkling of the true state of affairs with her.
"Let's go to supper," said he.
"If you don't mind," replied she, "I'd rather go home.I'm very tired.""You were sound asleep this morning.So you must have slept well," said he sarcastically.
"It's the play," said she.
"_Why_ didn't you like it?" he asked, irritated.
