“I am going to marry and settle down,” he said. “My position demands it, and I cannot go on living this way forever. I feel that I have a political future, and I must protect myself. If I ever came up again for any prominent office, as I expect to in the near future, my relations with you would mean the worst kind of defeat for me. I want to be fair with you, and I am willing to settle any claim you may have on me for anything within reason.”
His story took a long while in the telling, and through it all she never moved nor spoke.
When he had quite finished she stretched and yawned.
“Is that all you have to say?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered, “that is all, except that I hope we will part friends, and that if ever I can do anything for you, I——”
“Now whatever you do,” she spoke up sharply, “don’t get tiresome nor sentimental. You’re a good fellow, and always have been—so you think. I have come into your life and have answered your purpose. I have entertained your friends and made it pleasant for you and them. I suppose you think I did it simply because I was provided for and had everything I wanted—that I was a sort of a high-class servant who was satisfied with her wages. If I had been wise I would have anticipated this and been prepared for it. I would have had enough money in the bank to have been independent to a certain extent. I am like a poker chip—you bought me, played with me, and now you are ready to cash me in because you have finished with me. You are a good fellow—with the men—but you are very tiresome and that reminds me that I am tired and wish you would run along. Go home now, and dream of the nice girl you are going to marry.”
He stood looking at her like a man under the influence of a drug. He did not know what to say. He had expected a scene of some kind, and he was disappointed. His vanity was touched. Why, here was a woman for whom he had done everything in the world, and whom he thought loved him, and she was parting from him without a tear or even so much as a word of expostulation. That didn’t suit him at all. He wanted her to throw her arms about his neck and beg him not to go. Of course, he would have gone just the same, but he didn’t want to think that she would let him go so easily.
The pride and vanity of man is a peculiar thing, and there are not ten men in a thousand who understand women, even though they think they do. This man, clever, handsome and brilliant, was of the majority who do not know, and he had nothing to say to the woman who had entertained him and with whom he had spent many pleasant hours.
He looked at her for a moment and then he went out as though he had been whipped from the door.
She turned the key in the lock and then gave way to her real feelings by crying as only a heart-broken woman can.