"You see—that was the sort of moonshine I started in to live. Two or three times I was a grievous disappointment to my people, and once or twice, perhaps, I was disappointed myself. I was never quite sure what I wanted. But if you think I was consistently mercenary you are mistaken. "I shall tell you something more—something no one knows. There was a man I met while that ideal was still strong and beautiful to me—but after I'd come to see that here, in this life, it was not easily to be kept. He was older than I, experienced with women—a lover of women, I came to understand in time. I was a novelty to him, a fresh recreation—he enjoyed all those romantic ideals of mine. I thought then he loved me, and I worshipped him. He was married, but constantly said he was about to leave his wife, so she would divorce him. I promised to come to him when it was done. He had married for money and he would have been poor again. I didn't mind in the least. I tell you this to show you that I could have loved a poor man, not only well enough to marry him, but to break with the traditions, and brave the scandal of going to him in that common way. With all I felt for him I should have been more than satisfied. But I came in time to see that he was not as earnest as I had been. He wasn't capable of feeling what I felt. He was more cowardly than I—or rather, I was more reckless than he. I suspected it a long time; I became convinced of it a year ago and a little over. He became hateful to me. I had wasted my love. Then he became funny. But—you see—I am not altogether what you believed me. Wait a bit longer, please.
"Then I gave up, almost—and later, I gave up entirely. And when my brother was about to marry that woman, and Mr. Shepler asked me to marry him, I consented. It seemed an easy way to end it all. I'd quit fondling ideals. And you had told me I must do anything I could to keep Fred from marrying that woman—my people came to say the same thing—and so—"
"If he had married her—if they were married now—then you would feel free to marry me?"
"You would still be the absurdest man in New York—but we can't discuss that. He isn't going to marry her."
"But he has married her—"
"What do you mean?"
"I supposed you knew—Oldaker told me as I left the hotel. He and your father were witnesses. The marriage took place this afternoon at the Arlingham."
"You're not deceiving me?"
"Come, come!—girl!"
"Oh, pardon me! please! Of course I didn't mean it—but you stunned me. And papa said nothing to me about it before he left. The money must have been too great a temptation to him and to Fred. She has just made some enormous amount in copper stock or something."