The necessity for her refusal had depressed her beyond any experience she had passed through in the dreary desert of the past five years.
She lifted the sleeping kitten and whispered passionately:
“Am I a silly fool, Kitty? Am I?”
The tears came at last. She lay back on the pillows and let them pour down her cheeks without protest or effort at self-control. Every nerve of her strong, healthy body ached for the love and companionship of men which she had denied herself with an iron will. At nineteen it had been easy. The sheer animal joy in life had been enough. With the growth of each year the ache within had become more and more insistent. With each ripening season of body and mind, the hunger of love had grown more and more maddening. How long could she keep up this battle with every instinct of her being?
She rose at last, determined to go to Jane, confess that she had been a fool, and step out into the new world, New York's world, and begin to live.
She seized her hat and furs and put them on with feverish haste.
“God knows it's time I began—I'll be an old maid in another year and dry up—ugh!”
She looked in the quaint oval mirror that hung beside her door and lifted her head with a touch of pride.
She had reached the street and started for the Broadway car before she suddenly remembered that Jane was “dining with a dangerous man.”
She couldn't turn back to that little room tonight without new courage. Her decision was instantaneous. She couldn't surrender to the flesh and the devil by yielding to Jane.