“What you did first.”
She considered, then spoke with a cold frankness that was in keeping with her recent attitude toward him—to show him her calculating worldliness, stark, unexcused.
“I thought I had passed through the Golden Doors,—that’s a phrase of mine,—but after that night at the Grantham when I saw you, I realized that I still stood far without them. I saw that I had either to vanish—or be willing to wait my time, perhaps a long time, if I would see it through. I decided on the latter.”
“Yes,” Clifford prompted.
“That meant,” the unsparing voice went on, “that for a long time Jack and I would hardly dare be seen openly together, that we had to live in seclusion. I made Jack see things as I saw them, so we sublet an apartment on Riverside Drive, and we’re known there as Mr. and Mrs. Grayson.”
“And what about Jack’s going to work?”
“I thought that if through my influence Jack should settle down, it would help when his father finds out.”
“I see.”
“I realize perfectly,” the cold voice continued, “another problem that I have to face. Jack likes gay company; further, you said it is not his nature to care for one woman long. Well, I must make Jack like me for a long time, and make him like me despite the solitude. I shall do it.” She paused, then added: “I believe that is everything.”
They rode on in silence, Clifford covertly eyeing the erect, contained figure beside him—guessing at what it must have cost her to give up her dreamed-of pleasure, to be forced into seclusion, to be forced to undertake the responsibility of sobering down a joyous spendthrift. Life certainly had not given her what she had expected in her bargain.