CHAPTER X
Doré went to bed at once—not to sleep, for she felt in her mind a cold clarity that seemed impervious to fatigue, but in order to avoid conversation with Snyder. She did not at once return over the surprising moments of the night. From her pillow the flushed clock-face of the Metropolitan Tower came bulging into the room. She watched it with a contented numbness of the senses, striving to follow the jerky advance of the minute-hand, conscious only of the fragrance and pleasure of the cool bed-linen, dreamily awake, prey to a delicious mental languor. She asked herself no questions ... she wished no answers. The emotional self which had so violently awakened within her, overturning all her mental qui vive, returned, but in a gentle warm dominion. She drew her arm under the pillow ... and her embrace was tightening about his neck again. She felt herself caught, rudely imprisoned, struggling—dominated, convulsively yielding. She moved restlessly, rearranging the pillows—returning impatiently into the illusion, feeling herself always in his arms.
"The great elemental forces of nature will decide for you," he had said....
She remembered the words confusedly. She had never quite believed in these forces ... though often in her lawless imagination she had sought to comprehend them, never convinced, always puzzled. She had permitted half stolen embraces, furtive clasps of the hand, wondering, always disillusioned. She had perceived, it is true, some inexplicable emotional madness in the men who sought her ... and sometimes roughly it had repelled her to great distances. This abrupt disorder which she could call forth with a tone of her voice, a quick lingering glance or a certain reclining languor, had excited her curiosity. There was a certain mental exhilaration in it, the cruel teasing of the feline, playing with its prey. It gave her an excited sense of power ... that was all. The slightest acquiring advance had roused in her a fury of resistance.... And now, at last, she knew! This was the force that had made playthings of men and women, that sent them where they did not wish to go, that could upset all coldly logical calculations, that gave the frailest little women irresistible weapons against the strongest men ... or made them throw all opportunities to the wind and follow incomprehensible husbands.
She heard the cautious entering of Snyder, and instantly closed her eyes, breathing deep—a light word would have seemed a sacrilege. She waited, irritated and nervous, until her room-mate, undressing in the pale reflections, had noiselessly curled herself on the couch.
What would she have done if he had remained? Now the languor that had stolen treacherously over her senses was gone, dissipated by the presence of another human being. Her mind threw itself feverishly on the problem, encircling it, trying it from a hundred points of view. What did it mean? Was her liberty, her freedom of action suddenly jeopardized? And the thought of this overpowering new force made her violently react ... striving to escape its verity ... just as her body had whipped around in his arms when they had suddenly closed about her. What was it frightened her?... the man, or something awakened within her?
She sat up in bed, her head in her palms, throbbingly awake. What would have happened if he had stayed?... But he had not stayed—and she had not allowed him to return. She said it to herself victoriously ... illogically evading an answer ... momentarily satisfied. And if he came again? Would there be a new danger?
She sank wearily on her pillow. No ... of that she was sure ... never again would she be so vulnerable.... It had been the unknown—the thing she had not believed in—which had taken her by surprise ... unprepared.
Then he had made the mistake of returning. Massingale, strong and unyielding, had had a fearfully attractive force over her will and her vanity, but the other ... the Massingale who had returned, was human, and therefore could be subjected. No!... she would never fear him again!
Did she love him?... She did not know ... at least she insisted that it could not be so—not all at once—perhaps, later. But she knew this—that she longed to see him again, to have the dragging night end, to awaken to the morning and to hear his coming,... to go hurriedly with him out of the discordant city, somewhere, where it was peaceful and solitary,... somewhere where they could turn and look in each other's eyes and know what had happened.