“Well, let her sleep with me, anyway,” Madge persisted. “You can see her to-morrow morning.”
“Now Ma-adge, don’t butt in where it’s not needed,” said Donovan chidingly.
“Yes, cut out the guardian-angel stuff,” Campbell said, in a careless voice. “She’s ’n old sweetie uh mine, I’m telling you.”
Madge turned and looked down at Blanche, in a dully sad way.
“Oh, well, it’s no business of mine,” she said.
When Blanche woke up on the next morning, she looked at the strange room with an uncomprehending, ferocious ache in her head. Then, in a detached fashion, incidents of the past night began to bob up in her head, and she pieced them slowly together, in a stumbling, erratic way. She’d met Campbell and gone to a party with him, and then she had become drunk and everything had grown slowly darker. She remembered vaguely that she had begged him to take her home.... Then, an indefinable stirring within her heart told her what had happened.... So, he had sneaked off, afraid to face her now—the coward, the coward. But perhaps he was still in the place, and ... where was she, anyway? She opened the door and walked unsteadily down the hallway. Yes, this was the same parlor where the party had taken place—same piano and furniture. Perhaps Campbell was sleeping in another room in the apartment.
She returned to the room that she had left, and sat down. The pain in her head gave an added edge to the anger within her. The skulking meanness of it—oh, she’d love to break his head in two! Then another voice within her said: “You know perfectly well that’s what almost any man’ll do, ’specially ’f he’s drunk, as well as you are. Don’t act like a school-kid—you knew it all the time, but you kept on drinking last night, long past your limit ... fool.”
Her anger against Campbell subsided to a more practical disgust. If she had loved him, she would not have minded this finale, but as it was she felt like a swindled imbecile. Campbell would have to be put in his place once more, and treated with a cool aloofness. He had benefited by an accident wedded to her own weakness, and the only grim satisfaction left would be to ignore him from now on. She didn’t blame him, particularly—all men seemed to be cut out of the same stuff—but it would have to be impressed upon him that his victory had been an empty one, and that she was still her own mistress. After all, she still felt intact and undisturbed—it would take more than a dozen Campbells to break her spirit—and she would sever her relations with him merely as a matter-of-fact self-protection.
When she had washed, and dressed herself, she walked back to the parlor and pulled back the shades at the window, and looked down at the street far below. It was crowded with people and vehicles—the hour might be around noon. She glanced back at a clock on the top of the sideboard. Eleven-thirty—she would have to telephone the “Parlor” and give them the old illness-excuse.... Where had every one disappeared to—where was Donovan, who lived in the apartment? She heard the front door close, and she sat down, waiting, and shrinking a little ... she didn’t care to meet any one at this exact moment. Campbell walked into the parlor, and when he saw her, he greeted her with a solicitous joviality.