People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

Head and heart hot, I pushed back upleaping questions, forced down surging suspicion and tormenting fears, but all the while I was conscious that in the friendship that was mine and Selwyn's, the something that was more than friendship, a great gap had opened that was separating us. If he gave no explanation of his acquaintance with the girl he had just left, it must be because he could not. He knew my hatred of mystery, my insistence upon frankness between friends. Would he come in and talk as freely as he had ever done of whatever concerned him? Would he tell me—

As I opened the door with my latch-key Bettina bounded inside, and the light falling on Selwyn's face showed it white and worn. Something was greatly troubling him.

"Good night." He turned toward the steps without offering his hand. "It is useless to ask you not to go in such neighborhoods as you were in this evening, but if you knew what you were doing you would stay away."

"I know very well what I am doing. I am hardly so stubborn or wilful as you think. But if it is unwise for me to be in the neighborhood referred to, is it any less wise—for you?"

"Me?" The inflection in his voice was the eternal difference in a man's and woman's privileges. "It was not a question of wisdom—my being where you saw me. It was one of necessity. Moreover, a man can go where he pleases. A woman can't. No purity of purpose can overcome the tyranny of convention."

"Convention!" My hands made impatient gesture. "It's the drag-net of human effort, the shelter within which cowards run to cover. In its place it has purpose, but its place, for convenience sake, has been immensely magnified. And why is convention limited to women?"

It was childish—my outburst—and, ashamed of it, I started to go in, then turned and again looked at Selwyn. Into his face had come something I could not understand, something that involved our future friendship, and, frightened, I leaned against the iron railing of the little porch and gripped it with hands behind my back.

"Selwyn!" The words came unsteadily. "Have you nothing to say to me, Selwyn? Don't you know that I know the girl with you to-night was the girl who—who we brought in here last night? If you knew her, why—"

Staring at me as if not understanding, Selwyn came closer. In his eyes was puzzled questioning, but as they held mine they filled with something of horror, and over his face, which had been white and worn, spread deep and crimson flush. "You don't mean— God in heaven! Do you think the girl is anything to me?"

I did not answer, and, turning, he went down the steps and I into the house.