As soon as I saw you I
felt bowed into the dust. A man like you, doing anything so vulgar as I
suspected you of--oh, dearest, I'm _so_ ashamed!"
He put his arms round her and drew her to his shoulder. And the scene of
mimicry in his office flashed into his mind, and the blood burned in his
cheeks. But he had no such access of insanity as to entertain the idea
of confession.
"It was that typewriter girl," continued Josephine. She drew away again
and once more searched his face. "You told me she was homely."
"Not exactly that."
"Insignificant then."
"Isn't she?"
"Yes--in a way," said Josephine, the condescending note in her voice
again--and in his mind Miss Hallowell's clever burlesque of that note.
"But, in another way--Men are different from women. Now I--a woman of
my sort--couldn't stoop to a man of her class. But men seem not to feel
that way."
"No," said he, irritated. "They've the courage to take what they want
wherever they find it. A man will take gold out of the dirt, because
gold is always gold. But a woman waits until she can get it at a
fashionable jeweler's, and makes sure it's made up in a fashionable way.
I don't like to hear _you_ say those things."
Her eyes flashed. "Then you _do_ like that Hallowell girl!" she cried--and
never before had her voice jarred upon him.
"That Hallowell girl has nothing to do with this," he rejoined. "I like
to feel that you really love me--that you'd have taken me wherever you
happened to find me--and that you'd stick to me no matter how far I
might drop."
"I would! I would!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "Oh, I didn't mean
that, Fred. You know I didn't--don't you?"
She tried to put her arms round his neck, but he took her hands and held
them. "Would you like to think I was marrying you for what you have?--or
for any other reason whatever but for what you are?"
It being once more a question of her own sex, the obstinate line
appeared round her mouth. "But, Fred, I'd not be _me_, if I were--a
working girl," she replied.
"You might be something even better if you were," retorted he coldly.
"The only qualities I don't like about you are the surface qualities
that have been plated on in these surroundings. And if I thought it was
anything but just you that I was marrying, I'd lose no time about
leaving you. I'd not let myself degrade myself."
"Fred--that tone--and don't--please don't look at me like that!" she
begged.
[Illustration: "'Would you
|