"Plus gratification of your vanity—the inevitable factor in every human equation."
"You don't believe my work means anything to me for its own sake?"
"Are you asking me to believe you consider this a life worth while? Or that any success it may purchase is worth the sacrifice?"
"What sacrifice, pray?"
"Of the woman you might yet be, if you'd give up this nonsense."
"I think you must mean the woman I might have been before your conduct killed her in me!"
Bel made a wry face as he stooped to pick up his motor-coat. "This conversation is degenerating into a wrangle in which I have the traditional chance a snowball has in the place where motion-pictures were spawned. A husband, even a deserted one, is always in the wrong.... Mind lending me a hand, Linda? Can't quite manage this with one arm."
At once angrily and gently Lucinda draped the motor-coat over his shoulders. "Generalizing on the hardships of husbands," she suggested sweetly, "is hardly an excuse for making it your specialty to be always in the wrong."
"I feel that, you know." Bel replied with lips that twitched—"feel it like everything.... I'm to understand, then, my wishes mean nothing to you?"
Lucinda gave a little, silent laugh, and in silence for a moment gazed on Bellamy, her eyes unreadable. Nor was there the hostility he had expected in the tone in which she asked: "Have you any reason to advance, why your wishes should influence me?"