At other moments she said to herself with profound conviction that it must be love, that that was the way, the only way, that love could come, overpowering the reason, despite the reason, beating down all reason. Then if it were love? Would she submit, renounce all her defiantly proclaimed liberty? Characteristically, she did not answer. Instead, she projected herself into this submission, and her imagination, volatile as a dream, whisked her from one fancy to another. She imagined what it would be like to fill a feverish letter, each night after he had gone, with all the tender, passionate, jealous, or yearning fancies that he had left tumultuously stirring in her breast—a letter which she herself would carry hastily out into the night, running to the letter-box at the corner, that he might wake to a surprise. And each morning she, too, would awake to his call, his voice over the telephone. At other times, sentimentally urged, she visualized him as ill, sadly stricken, herself at his bedside.
"So, after all, I am going to marry—like all the rest!" she said, suddenly roused. This one word—"marriage"—pierced through all the fancied illusions. Marriage—one man; nothing but one man every day, year in and year out—was it possible? Could she resign herself? No more excitement, no more gambling with opportunity, no more dramatizing herself to each new situation, no more luring and evasion, no more sporting with dull brute strength or matching of wits—nothing but the expected, the routine—yes, the inevitable commonplace? Could she give this up—so soon? She rose fiercely against the sacrifice. Never! She preferred her youth.
All at once a sound broke across the hot flights of her conflicting fancies. She sat up instantly, bending forward, listening. She had heard a sob, muffled but unmistakable, from the adjoining room—then another. She slipped quickly to the floor. Snyder too had risen.
"Be quiet, Snyder. Let me go," she said to her in a whisper, forcing her back.
She felt her way to the door, and opening it quietly, passed into Winona's room.
"Who's that?" asked a frightened voice.
"Hush! It's I—Dodo. I heard you," she said, groping. "What's wrong, Winona?"
But the figure in the bed, without answer, buried itself face down in the covers, striving to choke back the sobs.
Doré put her arm about her, endeavoring to calm her, wondering and a little apprehensive.
"But this is frightful! Winona, you mustn't!" she said helplessly. "Winona, can't you tell me? Can't you speak?"