"Then," said Louie, advancing, "I'm going to spoil your satisfaction. Listen to me." Her eyes were like saucers of ice. "You've lost your husband. I'm not going to tell you how, but I'll tell you how you can find out. You can tell him what he wouldn't believe when I told him—that you're jealous. You've reason; ask him what it is. If he doesn't tell you, he daren't; if he does—ck!—it's all up between you. Do you suppose," she said slowly, "that you're the kind of woman men tell things to? You, who can neither trust him nor be trusted by him? You, who spy on him when his back's turned? You, who listen while a miserable little Jewess makes mischief for you—for I guess Miriam Levey sent you here? You think you love him? Look at me, I say"—she rapped out the words like a command—"listen, and I'll tell you my idea of loving a man! I've messed my life; if you were anything but what you are you'd know that if you wanted to hurt me your way wouldn't be to point at my little boy and look round my bedroom as if you expected to find pipes and overcoats there! Oh, that's not the way! The way would be to let me see what a perfect marriage could be; there might be tears in my eyes then! But what's this you show me instead? Oh, I know what your marriage is without telling. It would take you and a woman to make a wife for a man! And what would mine have been if I hadn't thrown my chance away? What should I have said if I'd seen what you think you've seen? Listen! I should have said: 'Go, if you like; find a woman if you can whose love's like mine; search the earth for her; I give you leave, and I shall be waiting for you, just the same, when you come back and say there isn't one!' But had you thought of that? Not you! At a word you're off, asking whether this and that's true, because you don't trust him; and so he gives his trust to somebody else! That's what you've lost—and you don't even miss it, you know so little of love!"
Evie had fallen back against the wall, a little intimidated by her vehemence. She did not understand, but she seemed to apprehend that there was something she did not understand. Louie broke out anew.
"You know love! And when and how did you learn it, pray? As you learned your shorthand and things (oh, you're trying hard to forget you ever knew them!) at that place in Holborn? Why, you failed in your petty little examinations there; do you think love's easier? Something you get out of a text-book and answer a paper on? Your husband might know if you don't! He knew just what those other lessons were worth, but he doesn't seem to know that loving has a genius too—that one in a million has it as a gift and the others mimic it as you're mimicking people in your dress and talk now! And you call me common—me, who told your husband long ago what his only, only chance was! Oh, I mustn't say any more or I shall say everything! And you toss your head and say: 'Nobody minds that kind of losing!' That's your idea; that's what you really think! Why, your mind wants a window as badly as that little dark back room at your Business College.... Oh, it maddens me, the sheer waste! A necklace of love—pearls—and good gracious, a bit of cheap glass in the middle of it! Yes, I mean you."
She was walking rapidly up and down; she struck the rail of Jimmy's cot with her hand as she passed. Evie, cowed, watched her from the wall. Louie stopped before her.
"What do you do for him?" she said bitterly. "What do you give him? What do you bear for him, suffer for him? Don't whimper—tell me—you've made pretty free with me—put that handkerchief away and tell me——"
But instead of putting the handkerchief away, Evie burst into loud sobs. Louie watched her remorselessly. Tears, of course—no doubt that was the way she managed Jim——
"That's no good with me," she said harshly. "I want to know what you do for your husband besides following him about and asking questions about him."
Evie's hand moved as if for a chair. There was none. She lifted her head, walked across the room, and fell across Louie's bed. Louie still watched her unmoved.
"Well?" she demanded again, after a quarter of a minute.
Muffled in the bedclothes, Evie's voice came.