The image was gone from his shrine, and in its place a Nemesis sat enthroned—a Nemesis in dark gray who looked at him with the eyes of contempt and who called herself Miss Loring. He was resentful of her name as at an intrusion. It typified the pedantry of the conventional and commonplace.
The arc lamps died and flared, their shadows leaping like gnomes in and out of the obscurity. High in the air, lights punctured the darkness where the hotels loomed. Beside him on the drive gay turnouts hurried. The roar of the city came nearer. Arcadia was not even a memory.
The Pride of the Gallatins was a sorry thing that night. This Gallatin had bared it frankly, torn away its rugged coverings, that a woman might see and know him for what he was—the best and the worst of him. Even now he did not regret it; for bitter as the retribution had been, he knew that he had owed her that candor, for it was a part of the lesson he had learned with Jane—the other Jane—among the woods. This Jane remembered not; for she had struck and had not spared him, and each stinging phrase still pierced and quivered in the wound that it had made.
Out of the blackness of his thoughts reason came slowly. It was her right, of course, to deny him the privileges of her regard—the rights of fellowship—this he had deserved and had expected, but the carelessness of her contempt had been hard to bear. Mockery he had known in women, and intolerance, but no one of his blood had ever brooked contempt. His cheeks burned with the sudden flush of anger and his hand upon his stick grew rigid. A man might pay for such a thing as that—but a girl!
His muscles relaxed and he laughed outright. A snip of a girl that he’d kissed in the woods, who now came out dressed in broadcloth and sanctimony! How should it matter what she thought of him? Absurd little Puritan! Girls had been kissed before and had lived to be merry over it. He was a fool to have built this enchanted fabric into his brain, this castle of Micomicon which swayed and toppled about his ears. Miss Loring, forsooth!
He took out his cigarette case in leisurely fashion and struck a match, and its reflection sparkled gayly in his eyes. He inhaled deeply and bent his steps toward the nearest lights beyond the trees.