The artificial red of her lips greatly helped to make her sweetly smiling face the perfection of gentle irony. "And you?" said she.
"You know perfectly well it's different about a man."
"I know nothing of the sort," replied she. "Among certain kinds of people that is the rule. But I'm not of those kinds. I'm trying to make my way in the world, exactly like a man. So I've got to be free from the rules that may be all very well for ladies. A woman can't fight with her hands tied, any more than a man can—and you know what happens to the men who allow themselves to be tied; they're poor downtrodden creatures working hard at small pay for the men who fight with their hands free."
"I've taken you out of the unprotected woman class, my dear," he reminded her. "You're mine, now, and you're going back where you belong."
"Back to the cage it's taken me so long to learn to do without?" She shook her head. "No, Rod—I couldn't possibly do it—not if I wanted to. . . . You've got several false ideas about me. You'll have to get rid of them, if we're to get along."
"For instance?"
"In the first place, don't delude yourself with the notion that I'd marry you. I don't know whether the man I was forced to marry is dead or whether he's got a divorce. I don't care. No matter how free I was I shouldn't marry you."
He smiled complacently. She noted it without irritation. Truly, small indeed is the heat of any kind that can be got from the warmed-up ashes of a burnt-out passion. She went easily on:
"You have nothing to offer me—neither love nor money. And a woman—unless she's a poor excuse—insists on one or the other. You and I fancied we loved each other for a while. We don't fool ourselves in that way now. At least I don't, though I believe you do imagine I'm in love with you."
"You wouldn't be here if you weren't."