“Of course not––for that much I can draw a deep breath and give thanks––it was my own luck.”
“Other times, other titles,” she murmured.
“One time you told me what you thought of the future of American women, the all-round good fellows of the world––do you remember? I wish you had not told me. It’s just another thing to irritate. I’m driven mad by trifles––I’m starved for a big tragedy; that’s the way this craving for a fortune and a good time is playing boomerang. I’m so infernally weary of hearing about the cut-glass slipper heels of some chorus girl and so hungry to hear about a shipwreck, a new creed, a daring crime that–––”
“You foolish, funny boy,” she said, taking pity on his involved analysis, “don’t you see what you have done? It’s quite the common fate of get-rich-quick dreamers; you merely symbolized your goal by Beatrice Constantine, she stood for the combined relationships of wife, comrade, lady luxury––and you captured your goal, and the greater effort ceased. You have had time to examine your prize in microscopic fashion. It isn’t at all what you intended––but it is quite what you deserve. No one can make a lie serve for the truth––at all times and for an indefinite period. There is bound to come a cropper somewhere––usually where you least expect it. And you lied to yourself in the beginning, a passive sort of falsehood, in merely refusing to see the truth and groping for the unreal. You had to justify your race for wealth, so you said, ‘Oho, I’ll love a story-book princess and let that be my incentive. Story-book princesses are expensive lovelies and you have to have money bags to jingle before their fair selves!’ So you became more and more infatuated with the fairy-book princess who happened to be in your pathway––and it was Beatrice. She made you feel 231 that anything your slightly mad and quite unrealizing young self might do was proper. Just as the boy with a new air rifle deliberately sets up a target to shoot away at because the savage in him must justify hitting something besides the ozone, so you have merely wooed and won your own falsehood and disillusionment.”
“You say it rather neatly; but that isn’t all. The thing is that I’m not game enough to go on and take the punishment. Are you surprised?”
“No. But are you prepared to give up the thing which won her?”
“My money? I’ve thought of it.” He folded his arms and began walking up and down the littered, water-soaked office. “Would you like me any better?” he asked, tenderly.
Mary’s eyes grew stormy. “If the men go to work at once we can have the rugs sent to the cleaner’s and put down old matting for a temporary covering––and I can go ahead taking inventory,” was her answer.
“I see,” Steve made himself respond. “Well––I didn’t trespass very much,” he whispered as he passed her to leave the building.