“Julie thinks everything of being respectable,” he concluded, lamely.
“Is it much farther to your house?” asked Applegate, dully.
“Right here,” answered Hopson, pulling his key from his pocket.
They entered a crude little parlor whose carpet was too gaudy, and whose plush furniture was too obviously purchased at a bargain, but its air was none the less heavy with tragedy. A single gas-jet flickered in the centre of the room. On one side a great, broad-shouldered fellow sat doggedly with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands. There was resistance in every line of his figure. On the sofa opposite was Julie in her crimson dress. As she lifted her face eagerly, Applegate noticed traces of tears upon it. Mrs. Hopson, who had been moving about the room aimlessly, a pale and ineffective figure between these two vivid personalities, came to a standstill and looked at Applegate breathlessly. For a moment no one spoke. Then Julie, baffled by the eyes she could not read, sprang to her feet and stretched out her hands with a vehement gesture.
“John Applegate, you’ll put me right! You will. I know you will. I can’t go back to him! How can I?” Her hungry eyes scrutinized his still, inexpressive face.
“John, you aren’t going to turn me off?” Her voice had a despairing passion in it. “You won’t refuse to marry me if I get the divorce? Good God! You can’t be such a devil. John! oh, John!”
Applegate sat down and looked at her apathetically. He was not used to being called a devil. Somehow it seemed to him the term was misapplied.
“Don’t take on so, Julie,” he said, quietly. The room seemed to whirl around him, and he added, with a palpable effort:
“I’ll think it over and try to do what is best for both of us.”
At that MacDonald lifted his sullen face from his hands for the first time and glanced across at the other man with blood-shot eyes. Then he rose slowly, his great bulk seeming to fill the room, and walking over to Applegate’s chair stood in front of it looking down at him. His scrutiny was long. Once Applegate looked up and met his eyes, but he was too tired to bear their fierce light and dropped his own lids wearily.