“I was fascinated.”
“But she did the love-making? If it is what I imagine—a casual episode with some light-headed blasée society woman who is fascinated with your youth—I fail to see that you have incurred a permanent obligation.”
He gave her a sharp look, but forgot that he was in the hands of a woman whom many rated as the greatest actress of her time. Her expression was speculative, disapproving; there was no canny gleam in her eyes, no undue eagerness in her manner. It was patent that she was theorizing out of her wide knowledge of the world and human nature.
“She is not old—at least in looks,—and I don’t think she is blasée,” he replied, driven to defend his taste. “She is extraordinarily full of life, of interest in everything; but she is high-strung and takes things too tragically. It is my misfortune that she fancies just now that I have inspired the serious passion of her life. No doubt she will soon get over it. But meanwhile!”
“Why don’t you flee to England?”
“I won’t run. Besides, she would follow. And—well, there is an obligation. I could have stopped it in the beginning—as I did later, when I had only the excuse of being bored. But I did not. That I did not take the matter seriously at any time does not alter the fact that she did—does. And that seems to give her a hold I cannot shake off.”
“Ah! She appeals to your chivalry, your sympathy, pity! She is a clever woman at all events. She has played upon—Oh, I have no patience with such women. They ruin more lives than the labelled women of the streets, for they make the insidious approach. She wants to marry you, of course.”
“I fancy she has some such idea, but her husband lives.”
“Then she wants to run away with you first.”
Ordham stood up again. The more or less vague apprehensions that had haunted him for several hours took form and substance.