She thought it over. “The idea of holding a man in that way is repellent to me,” said she, now obviously posing.
“If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way,” said I, moving significantly toward the door, “one must overcome one's repugnance—or be despoiled and abandoned.”
“Thank you,” she said, giving me her hand. “Thank you—more than I can say.” She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her husband. “And I hope you will soon be as happy as I am.” That last in New York's funniest “great lady” style.
I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not at all pleasantly. “This New York!” I said aloud. “This New York that dabbles its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the garden of human nature. New York that destroys pride and substitutes vanity for it. New York with its petty, mischievous class-makers, the pattern for the rich and the 'smarties' throughout the country. These 'cut-out' minds and hearts, the best of them incapable of growth and calloused wherever the scissors of conventionality have snipped.”
I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. “Are you like that?” I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: “Yes,—I am.” Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic reality. “I don't care what you are!” I cried. “I want you! I want you!”
“Fool!” you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it the one you ought to love that you give your heart to? Is it the one that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the light?
I loved her. Yet I will say this much for myself: I still would not have taken her on any terms that did not make her really mine.
XXXIV. “MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME”
Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations.