“Forgiven you?� she echoed. “Why, Karl, I love you.�
Yes, the reply was banal enough. But the tone was not, nor was the wordless exclamation of worship with which Karl received it. And to her own self-disgust Daisy felt a stir of answering emotion in her own breast.
Just then she was required to connect Apartment 42 with the market, and at once afterward to put through a long-distance call for the building’s superintendent. And when next she sought to listen in, Karl and Madeline were finishing their talk. All Daisy could catch was Madeline’s childish query:
“Can’t we please try out the new car to-morrow, if the directors’ meeting is going to keep you this afternoon?�
And he answered gayly:
“To blue blazes with the directors! We’re going to Tumble Inn to-day, you and I, sweetheart—even if New York doesn’t get a stroke of business done south of Canal Street all afternoon. Good-by. You’ll be sure to call me up later, wont you?â€�
Daisy sat back in her wabbly chair to take mental account of stock.
She was amazed at herself—amazed, and a bit displeased, though not as much so as she could have wished. All her ideas and ideals seemed to be as wabbly as the kitchen chair she sat in. Womanlike, she straightway began to justify herself. True, an hour earlier, she had been filled with contempt for these two. Equally true, she was now irresistibly drawn to them again—which most certainly called for a reason; so she supplied the reason:
Madeline had been forced into a marriage, in mere childhood, with a man she did not love. And had she not said, “You know what my life with him has been, from the very beginning?â€� That alone told the story—the heartbreaking story of neglected wifehood, of ill-treatment, of a starved soul.
Who was Daisy to blame this pathetic young wife if she had at last let love into her heart after years of bondage to a brute? Daisy recalled Phil’s husky voice. From it she built up a physique that was a blend of Simon Legree’s and Falstaff’s, with a tinge of Bill Sikes. And, her moral sense deserting her, she realized that right or wrong she was steadfastly on the side of the lovers.