“You needn’t think she’ll look at you,” she began accusingly, pounding her heavy fists on the table. “She is Hobart’s prize and he is no saint, even if he does have his playtime where the neighbors can’t see him! How dare you come in here and take her home—an insult to me,” letting rage carry her to the top notch of unreason and unrestraint while Mark, sullen yet anxious to appease, was forced to watch the entire procedure. Presently he found opportunity to reply,
“I say, don’t tear it off rough! Have I neglected you or done anything without your approval? I’ve held up my best work to please you, because you want to stick in New York where you have a drag. Don’t you think that is something? But I’ll do the coast thing if it means a break,” a determined look replacing the anxious expression.
Lissa’s eyes narrowed. She saw she had overreached herself. Cleverly, she began a retreat. “Mark dear, I’m jealous! I’m not a nice young thing like Thurley—and you were a naughty bear to drop in and take her home—leave poor Lissa all aloney. Please, honey, kiss me; say you love me; you won’t go ’way out to the coast. I won’t let you. Remember all I’ve given up for you,” pointing at the photograph of an elderly, well known man of finance. “I must have love, Mark, and loyalty—such as I give the one I love.”
“Yes, but not servility—not crushing every bit of originality and decency from a chap—that girl’s eyes look you through!”
“Where would you have been if not for me?” Lissa was holding him half by force. “Who helped you when you had the fever? Who introduced you to Newport, who—”
Mark threw off her arm roughly. “Stop! Sometimes I wish you’d let me find my own gait in my own way—maybe it wouldn’t be dancing—”
Lissa burst into effective sobs. “Don’t say you want to be a horrid old lawyer or sawbones! Why is it so many wonderful men have loved me, yet I give my heart to a sulky boy that cannot appreciate what it means—why is it?” she demanded of the empty absinthe glass.
Mark almost laughed. “I’ll play fair,” he said doggedly, “but I do the coast tour in April.”
“You’ll grow away from me—”
“Which might be a good thing. I thought you didn’t want constancy, did you tell Thurley so—try to make her see your death-in-life stuff?”