“I did not begin, as I would have done if I were playing at love, did I, by inviting you to make love to me, by using coy glances, and all the little arts that a woman is master of—I did not do any of that.”
“No.”
“Well, I will tell you why I have outraged precedent. It is because, when I drew that comparison between you and the mansion with its garden of flowers, I spoke the truth. You have attracted me strangely, Nick Carter; not as other men might do, but as only you could do, and have done it. I can see in you the possibilities of supreme content—and Heaven knows that I long for content, as we all long for the unattainable. I do not love you—but I could love you. You are not necessary to me—but you could be so. One does not fall into love blindly—at least not one like I am, or like you are, possessed of brain and of judgment. I wonder if you understand me now?”
“I think so.”
“You know who I am. I know that you do know; and yet you have kept the secret. You are aware that I was born to better things; that no woman in the world is better connected than I am. Yet in my youth I threw that all away from me and went out into the world, driven there by one foolish act, and I have been in that world ever since buffeted by it; maligned by it. In that outer world there is no content anywhere.
“I am like other women in that I long for content. I am like other women in that I have a heart for love. I am like other women in that I am loyal to one thing at least, and that is to myself. I am like other women after all, and it is only those who do not know my real self who think me different. Can you understand that?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“You have the key to content, if you will give it to me. I hate this life of mine, in which there is nothing that is true and real. I crave the real things of life—and, my friend, all the real things of life depend upon just one quality—love.
“Wait, my friend, bear with me just a moment longer. Now that I have begun—and I have never talked frankly to any person before now—I have the wish to complete what I began to say.”