"All this." I indicated the apartment, the piano, the silk négligée—and the ring on her finger.... "Is it worth the price you are paying?" I asked gently. She lifted her shoulders.
"I don't know!" Her tone was half question, half defiance.... "I do know that the other way wasn't worth the sacrifices, the scrimping and mean pinching. I couldn't go on like that—I couldn't! I am young; I want some of the good things of life while I am still young ... and I was lonely. I didn't fit into my environment."
"I understand, Leila.... Perhaps I appreciate the loneliness, the rebellion, better than you think.... You see other girls enjoying the good things of life and apparently happy. But, after all, happiness is purely relative, and what makes for their happiness might not make for yours. Leila, dear girl, couldn't you make up your mind to stick it out just a little while longer?... Things were sure to come your way—or, perhaps, you would meet the right man and marry and settle down in the little home of your own which you told me you have always craved."
"The right kind of men don't marry chorus girls. The exceptions are rare. And what manner of men are they who do marry a girl out of the chorus? Old worn-out roués, almost senile from the debauched lives they have led. They crave something young and fresh as an elixir of life. Sometimes it's a young blood with money; a black sheep of the family who drinks and sports, and in the end there's divorce if nothing worse.... I couldn't marry a man like either of these.... It's a mistake to be too fastidious...."
"Is—is—he married?"
"He—O.... Yes, he's married—in a way. His wife and he have not really lived together for years. For the sake of the family they keep up appearances.... She doesn't understand him...."
"Did he tell you that—and you believe it?"
"But I know it's true! You'd believe it, too, if ever you were to see her. He married her when he was young and poor."
"I presume they loved each other then; she probably pinched and scrimped in those days to help him—to help him get where he is to-day."
"I don't know anything about that, of course. But I do know that I admire him; he has a wonderful mind. It's a privilege to be associated with a man like him. If you knew him, you would not think so badly of the—the arrangement."