“What would you gain?” was his pointed and elliptical interrogation.
She leaned forward in the fulcrum of light, and looked at him soberly.
“What is your idea of me?” she asked.
He looked back at the thick-lashed eyes with their iris rings of deep gray. There was something alert and yet unparticipating in their steady gaze. They held no trace of abashment. They were no longer veiled. There was even something disconcerting in their lucid and level stare.
“I think you are a very intelligent woman,” Copeland finally confessed.
“I think I am, too,” she retorted. “Although I haven’t used that intelligence in the right way. Don’t smile! I’m not going to turn mawkish. I’m not good. I don’t know whether I want to be. But I know one thing: I’ve got to keep busy—I’ve got to be active. I’ve got to be!”
“And?” prompted the First Deputy, as she came to a stop.
“We all know, now, exactly where we’re at. We all know what we want, each one of us. We know what Blake wants. We know what you want. And I want something more than I’m getting, just as you want something more than writing reports and rounding up push-cart peddlers. I want my end, as much as you want yours.”
“And?” again prompted the First Deputy.
“I’ve got to the end of my ropes; and I want to swing around. It’s no reform bee, mind! It’s not what other women like me think it is. But I can’t go on. It doesn’t lead to anything. It doesn’t pay. I want to be safe. I’ve got to be safe!”