"I don't wish to hear any more," said she, the strange look in her eyes. It was all she could do to hide the wild burst of emotion that had followed her discovery. Then she had not been without a chance for a real career! She might have been free, might have belonged to herself——
"It is not too late," cried he. "That's why I'm here."
"It is too late," she said.
"It is not too late," repeated he, harshly, in his way that swept aside opposition. "I shall get you back." Triumphantly, "The puzzle is solved!"
She faced him with a look of defiant negation. "That ocean I crossed—it's as narrow as the East River into which I thought of throwing myself many a time—it's as narrow as the East River beside the ocean between what I am and what I was. And I'll never go back. Never!"
She repeated the "never" quietly, under her breath. His eyes looked as if they, without missing an essential detail, had swept the whole of that to which she would never go back. He said:
"Go back? No, indeed. Who's asking you to go back? Not I. I'm not asking you to go anywhere. I'm simply saying that you will—must—go forward. If you were in love, perhaps not. But you aren't in love. I know from experience how men and women care for each other—how they form these relationships. They find each other convenient and comfortable. But they care only for themselves. Especially young people. One must live quite a while to discover that thinking about oneself is living in a stuffy little cage with only a little light, through slats in the top that give no view. . . . It's an unnatural life for you. It can't last. You—centering upon yourself—upon comfort and convenience. Absurd!"
"I have chosen," said she.
"No—you can't do it," he went on, as if she had not spoken. "You can't spend your life at dresses and millinery, at chattering about art, at thinking about eating and drinking—at being passively amused—at attending to your hair and skin and figure. You may think so, but in reality you are getting ready for me . . . for your career. You are simply educating yourself. I shall have you back."
She held the cigarette to her lips, inhaled the smoke deeply, exhaled it slowly.