VIII
The truth has already been stated regarding John Rawn; that, batrachian, half-dormant for almost half a century, and then putting into business what energy most men put into love and sex, he had passed a life of singular innocence, or ignorance, as to womankind. He had never countenanced much gossip about women, because he had little interest in the topic. The grande passion marks most of us for its own now and again, or is to be feared now and again; but the grande passion had passed by John Rawn. He was now approaching fifty years of age. Married he had been, and divorced; but he had not yet been in love.
He now spoke to his like, his mate in the hunt, of the opposite sex, a young woman who at that very moment was as beautiful a creature as might have been found on all Manhattan, a woman known in all Manhattan now as the mysterious "Lady of the Lightnings," the goddess of the stock certificates of one of the most mammoth American corporations, a creature over whom Manhattan's most critical libertines were crazed—and helpless; moreover, a woman who, out of all those in the great caravanserai at that moment, might as well as any have been chosen as the very type of gentle breeding and of gentle womanhood alike. But she had not yet been in love.
IX
"I don't understand, Mr. Rawn," repeated she slowly. "What possible ground could Mr. Ackerman have had? You surely don't think he could have spoken to any one else?"
"I wouldn't put that past Ackerman when he's drunk. If he'd talk to me, he would to others. And you know perfectly well that when talk begins about a woman, it never stops!"
"No, that is the cruel part of it."
Her voice trembled just enough, her eyes became just sufficiently and discreetly moist; she choked a little, just sufficiently.
"It is cruel," she said, with a pathetic little sigh, "but the hand of every man seems to be against a woman. Did you ever stop to think, Mr. Rawn, how helpless, how hopeless, we really are, we women?"
He flung himself closer upon the couch beside her, his face troubled, as she went on with her gentle protest.