The Major had been motioning for Edith to drive on down toward the gate, and she seized the chance for escape. Her lips quivered with shame and anger. It seemed already as if she had been splashed with mire.
"Oh, the vulgar creatures!" she said, in her throat, her teeth shut tight.
"There, isn't that a fine field?" asked the Major, as he pointed to the cabbages. "There is a chance for an American imitator of Monet—those purple-brown deeps and those gray-blue-pink pearl tints—What's the matter, my dear?" he broke off to ask. "Are you ill?"
"No, no, only let's go home," she said, the tears coming into her eyes.
He got in hastily.
"My dear, you are really ill. What's the matter? Has your old enemy the headache—" He put his arm about her tenderly.
"No, no! I'm sick of this place—I wish I'd never seen it! How could those dreadful men fight about me? It's horrible!"
The Major whistled.
"Oh, ho! that's got around to you, has it? I didn't know it myself until yesterday; I was hoping it wouldn't reach you at all. I wouldn't mind it, my dear. It's the shadow every lovely woman throws, no matter where she walks; it's only your shadow that has passed over the cesspool."
"But I can't even bear that; it seems like a part of me. What do you suppose they said of me?" she asked, in morbid curiosity.