Then I thought of her flying from him into the street, and the little bowed head on the street-car; and the old pity for her, the old bitterness toward him, returned upon me. I wondered how he could speak to her in this nonchalant way; what they were saying to each other; whether they would ever refer to that night at Auriccio’s; what Alice would think of him if she ever found it out; whether he was a villain, or only erred passionately; what was actually said in that palm alcove that night so long ago; whether this man, with the eyes and voice so fascinating to women, would renew his suit in this new life of ours; what Jim would think about it; and, more than all, how Josie herself would regard him.
“She ought never to have spoken to him again!” I hear some one say.
Ah, Madam, very true. But do you remember any authentic case of a woman who failed to forgive the man whose error or offense had for its excuse the irresistible attraction of her own charms?
They were coming back now, still talking.
“You dropped out of sight, like a partridge into a thicket,” said he. “Some of them said you had gone back to—to—”
“To the farm,” she prompted.
“Well, yes,” he conceded; “and others said you had left Chicago for New York; and some, even Paris.”
“I fail to see the warrant,” said Josie, as they approached the limit of earshot, “for any of the people at Madame Lamoreux’s giving themselves the trouble to investigate.”
“So far as that is concerned,” said he, “I should think that I—” and his voice quite lost intelligibility.
My cigar had gone out, and the cessation of the music ought to have apprised me of the breaking up of the dance, and still I lay looking at the sky and filled with my thoughts.