"It accounts for all the good that we do and for all the evil that we do," she resumed. "Each chooses a road of escape, perhaps many roads, and follows them madly. But," she concluded, "we never find that larger freedom. We are tormented by the feeling of its imminence, but it retreats ever beyond us. And finally we come face to face with the eternal, basic fact of existence: I am a prisoner. That's what we discover. We learn the truth. I learned it that night after the opera. I am the bird in the box!"
For an instant she held her head erect, then shrank, a pained and huddled form, against the cushions of the cab.
"Yes, I have my dream like the others," she whimpered. "But it isn't a dream. Love is a mode of escape. It is. It is. And it's my road. But do I follow it?"
The answer was a forlorn shake of the head.
"Emil, my Father, Simon, Emily Short, that girl Betty Holden, even Nora Gage; all—all wiser than I. They follow their instincts, creditable or discreditable, they follow them and they glean at least some satisfaction. While I—"
The full tide of her misery, that which she had tried to evade, inundated her.
"Fool, why am I like that?" she muttered, "for some scruple, which God, if he knows, probably laughs at me for respecting. As Emil said, wasn't it God made us capable of love?"
The tears had not come before. Now she checked them with her handkerchief, but constantly they fell, constantly she gave long deep sighs, heartrending, mournful. Presently a flaming, defiant thought stood out against the background of her misery. There was relief in action, even in the action that is called sin.
"Madam would like to have me get her ferry ticket?"
The greasy red face of the driver was peering down upon her; the cab had come to a standstill. She had entirely forgotten why she was there and it was only by an effort that she understood what he was asking.