"It has been my hope to forget all I represented before, and danger means nothing to me. Moreover, there are other reasons. I must have exercise and air. I do not care to risk meeting any of my old friends. I must get away from myself—from solitude—during some part of the twenty-four hours. And—well—the die was cast. I was publicly disgraced. It doesn't matter what I do now, and when I sit in that sort of place I can imagine that he is in similar ones on the other side of the continent. I told you that I intended to be no better than he—and of course as I am a woman I am worse."
"I suppose you would not be half so charming if you were not so completely feminine. But just how many of these night hells have you been to?"
"I can't tell. I've been to far worse dives than that. I've even been in saloons over on Barbary Coast. But although I've been hurt accidentally several times in scuffles, and a bullet nearly hit me once, I seem to bear a charmed life. I suppose those do that want to die. And although they treat me with no respect they seem to regard me as a harmless lunatic, and—and—I take very little when I am out. I have just enough pride left not to care to be taken to the calaboose by a policeman."
"Good God! How can you even talk of such things? Some day you will regret all this horribly."
"I'll never regret anything except that I was born."
"Well, here we are. I'll not take you up to your rooms. Don't give them a chance at that sort of scandal whatever you do. It's lucky for you that alcohol doesn't send you along a still livelier road to perdition. It does most women."
"I see him every moment. Even if I did not, I do not think—well, of course if things were different I should not be an outcast of any sort. And don't imagine that my refinement suffers in these new contacts. The underworld interests me; I had never even tried to imagine it before. I am permitted to remain aloof and a spectator. At times it is all as unreal as I seem to myself, sitting there. But I never feel so close to vice as to complete honesty. I have often had glimpses of blacker sins in Society."
"Well, I'm glad it's no worse. To tell you the truth, I've avoided looking you up, for I didn't know—well, I didn't want to see you again if you were too different. Good-night. I'll meet you at this door tonight at twelve sharp."
XXXVI
There were doctors' offices on the first floor and Madeleine climbed wearily the two flights to her room. Her muscles felt as tired as her spirit, but she had an odd fancy that her skeleton was of fine flexible steel and not only indestructible but tenacious and dominant. It defied the worst she could do to organs and soul.