"Father, he has deceived me. Wantonly, grossly, and without excuse. Speak to him again, I never will—"
"Eden—"
"—And if I ever see him it will be in court. It was for victims like myself that courts were invented."
At this speech Mr. Menemon stood up again, and paced the room; his head was bent, and he had the appearance of one in deep perplexity. From time to time he raised his hand and stroked his back hair. And as he walked Eden continued, but her tone was gentler than before:
"Father, you can never know. As you say, there are things of which it is not well to speak. But let me tell you: In marrying I thought my husband like yourself, one whom I could believe, whom I could honor, and of whom I should be proud. He was too old for me, people said. But my fear was that I should seem too young for him. Others insisted that I knew nothing of him, and all the while I hoped that he would not find me lacking. I wanted to aid, to assist. I was ambitious. He seemed possessed of the fibres of which greatness is the crown. I saw before him a future, a career which history might note. I dreamed that with the wealth which he had acquired and the power that was in him, he could win recognition of men and fame of time. It would be pleasant, I thought, to be the helpmate of such an one. How did it matter that he was an alien if I were at home with him? Father, I was proud of him. I was glad to be younger than he. What better guide could I find? Yes, I was glad of his years, for I had brought myself to think that when two people equally young and equally favored fall in love, it is nature that is acting in them. Whereas I loved not the man, but the individual, and that, I told myself, that is the divine. That is what I thought before marriage, and now I detect him in a vulgar intrigue. Is it not hideous? It took him six months to walk through my illusions, and one hour to dispel them. See, I have nothing left. Nothing," she added pensively, "except regret."
She remained silent a little space, then some visitation of that renegade Yesterday that calls himself To-morrow, seemed to stir her pulse.
"Father," she pleaded, "tell me; I can be free of him, can I not? You will keep him from me? you will get me back my liberty again?"
Mr. Menemon had resumed his former place at the table, and sat there, his head still bent. But at this appeal he looked up and nodded abstractedly, as though his attention were divided between her and someone whom he did not see.
"You are overwrought," he said. "Were you yourself, you would not speak in this fashion about nothing."
A sting could not have been more sudden in its effect. She gasped; a returning gust of anger enveloped her. She sprang from her seat as though impelled by hidden springs. "Nothing?" she cried. "You call it nothing to unearth a falsehood where you awaited truth, treachery where honesty should be, deceit instead of candor! You call it nothing to harbor a knight and discover him a knave, to give your trust unfalteringly and find that it has reposed on lies! Nothing to be jockied of your love, cozened of your faith! To wage a war with blacklegs and mistake that war for peace! Do you call it nothing to drown a soul, to make it a sponge of shadows that can no longer receive the light? Is it nothing to hold out your arms and be embraced by Judas? Is it nothing to be loyal and be gammoned for your innocence? Is it nothing to be juggled with, to be gulled, cheated, and decoyed? Is it nothing to grasp a hawser and find it a rope of sand? To pursue the real and watch it turn into delusion? Nothing to see the promise vanish in the hope? Is it nothing to take a mirage for a landscape, nothing to be hoodwinked of your confidence, to see high noon dissolve into obscurest night, a diamond into pinchbeck? Tell me, is it nothing to have trust, sincerity, and love for heritage, and wake to find that you have pawned them to a Jew? Do you think it nothing to be mated to a living perjury, a felony in flesh and blood? Is this what you call nothing? Is this it? Then tell me what something is."