“When the time comes that releases me from my pledge of absolute secrecy, dear,” he told her earnestly, “I mean to tell you all about my business—and I think you’ll approve, then. Now I don’t talk because I have no right to.”
Again there was silence, after which Glory said in a voice of still resolution which he had never heard from her before:
“I’m ignorant and uncultivated, Jack, but to me marriage is a full partnership—or it isn’t anything. When Mr. Harrison came, I saw for the first time just how I looked to men like him. I was just ‘pore white trash.’”
“Did he——” Spurrier broke off and his face went abruptly white with passion. Had Harrison been there at that moment he would have stood in 259 danger at the hands of his employee, but Glory shook her head and hastened to quiet him.
“He wasn’t impolite, Jack. It wasn’t that—only I read in his eyes what he tried to hide. I only told you that because I wanted you to understand me. People here say that you give me everything but yourself; that I’m not good enough for you except right here where there’s nothing better.”
“That is a damned lie,” he expostulated. “Who says it?”
“Only women-folks and gossipy grannies that you can’t fight with, Jack,” she answered steadily. “But I’ve thought about it lots. I’ve come to think, dear, that maybe you ought to be free—and if you ought,” she paused, then the final assertion broke from her with an agonized voice, “then, I love you enough to set you free.”
Spurrier seized her in his arms and his words came choked with vehement feeling.
“I want you, Glory. I want you always and I couldn’t live without you. When I have to go away I endure it only by thinking of coming back to you. If you ever set me free as you call it, it will be only because you don’t want me. I suppose in that case I’d try to take my medicine—but I think it would about kill me.”
“There’s no danger of that, dear,” she declared.