articulate in her indignation. "He was married last autumn to a
beautiful girl--and Aunt Victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was more
pleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" She flung out at him the
word, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as to
think.
It gave him no discomfort. "Oh no, I'm not," he said with a spectral
laugh, which had in it, to Sylvia's dismay, the very essence of
sanity. She did not know why she now shrank away from him, far more
frightened than before. "I'm about everything else you might mention,
but I'm not crazy. And you take my word for it and get out while you
still can ... _if_ you still can?" He faintly indicated an inquiry,
looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring gray
stubble of his unshaven face. "As for Morrison's wife ... let her get
out too. Gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. It's
only when they try to get away from her that they know she's in the
marrow of their bones. She lets them try. She doesn't even care. She
knows they'll come back. Gilbert did. And his wife ... well, I'm sorry
for Morrison's wife."
"She's dead," said Sylvia abruptly.
He took this in with a nod of the head. "So much the better for her.
How did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for Morrison's ..." he looked
at her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "Oh,
you did," he commented slackly. "Well, you'd better start home for La
Chance tonight," he said again.
They were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making no
pretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had been
their ostensible purpose in entering. Sylvia was indeed aware of great
pictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses,
women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. She
remembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story of
Ste. Genevieve. She wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whom
she herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. But she
felt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, such
utterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. She
spoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "You're entirely
wrong about Aunt Victoria. She's not in the least that kind of a
woman."
He shook his head slowly. "No, no; you misunderstand me. Your Aunt
Victoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always will
be. She i
|