"P. S. Now, whatever you do, don't get teary about me. It isn't necessary. I don't care in the least—now! That's honest!"
Inclosed was a bank-note of a hundred dollars. The sight of this money coming from such a source brought to Dodo a sudden horror akin to the smarting shame she had experienced at Brennon's insulting advances. She went out hastily to lunch, alone, to that mediocre noisy restaurant on Lexington Avenue where she had gone so miserably on the night of her first meeting with Massingale, Sassoon and Lindaberry. There, in the quiet of a corner, she took out the letter and reread it. Her first thought was to rush to Winona and take her in her arms. No; certainly she had nothing in her heart now but charity.
How well she understood the horror of returning into the old! Why should not a woman have the right to progress, to free herself from hateful surroundings? Why should it be so difficult for a woman, when it was so easy for a man? Why should she only be forced to the wall? In the bare room, lighted by feeble curtained windows, she saw this other life from which she too had emerged, to which she was resolved never to return, but which frightened her now as a possibility. How tired and pinched these men and women were who surrounded her! And the women, how bare of coquetry and charm! Even the young men who clustered in a corner, talking languidly, had a tired air of being already middle-aged!
Her next impulse was to warn Winona of her insecurity: for she had read Gilday without illusions, and if five months ago she had perceived what he would be to-day, she saw now the man of to-morrow, undisturbed by sentiment or weakness, avid of experience and sensation, an egoist soon evolved, who would never deviate from his own desires from any feeling of remorse or pity. She felt that his attachment could not last. She must warn Winona, open her eyes, prepare her for the worst! She went from the lunch-room with this one thought in mind. Only, as the interview would be difficult, and she did not quite yet know what to counsel, she began to wander aimlessly through the streets, gusty with the rage of March.
The figure of Winona haunted her, rising like an accusing specter against her conscience. If only she had understood in time! She saw her always weak and irresolute, obstinately shrugging her shoulders, her brow clouded over—rebellious and foredoomed. Again she revolted at the different destinies of the sexes, with a hot indignant anger. Why should the woman be cut off from all friendships, and not the man? Would it make any difference to Gilday's friends, or change his position in the slightest? That was the injustice of it all. And who was unjust? Her own sex!
"No! She needs a friend more than ever!" she said resolutely. "I'll go to her now—this instant!"
All at once, by one of the perversities of the city, as, come to the thoroughfare of Fifth Avenue, she was halted and crowded against the curb, a great automobile came swinging about the corner, with Gilday at the wheel, Adèle Vickers and two men behind, and in front, laughing and elegant, Winona Horning. They flashed by without even seeing her, standing on the sidewalk, elbowed by the common crowd. She had but a glimpse of the girl who had shared her wall in Miss Pim's boarding-house; but the glimpse she had caught of the butterfly that had emerged from the grub tore down her last illusions. She it was who was left standing, depressed, struggling against the buffeting busy crowd, feeling all at once deserted and shoddy.
Until now she had never experienced the slightest temptation in regard to Sassoon. She had never deceived herself on that point, for she had a horror of ugliness, and it was not money, but romance, which she wished to force from life in this ardent fleeting period of her youth. Sassoon awoke, not her cupidity, but her curiosity. It was an unexplored world, and she was anxious to perceive its proportions. What would he do under strong provocation, and what, at least, would it mean to her if she were differently inclined? Besides, his docile attitude had disarmed her prudence: she believed in her control over him.
But to-day, one in the multitude that moved, heavy of foot and weary of heart, through the great shop-lit thoroughfares, she felt in a peculiarly vulnerable moment. She had been walking for hours in the effort to tire her brain, afraid to seek out Massingale for fear that another deception was awaiting her, beginning more and more to doubt that anything but empty dreams would ever come. This physical weariness into which she had forced herself had brought a profound moral lassitude. She felt perilously near the point of surrender. At times she had a desire to take train and escape to somewhere unknown, to reconstruct everything from the bottom up. Ida's marriage, the departure of Winona, affected her in different ways. What better chance had she to struggle against the crushing weight of an implacable city? After all, was not Ida right? Did she really belong? How long could she endure in this rarefied air? At bottom, what did all these men really think of her—even Massingale? Did one of them consider her in equality?
Never had she felt the bruising brutality of New York so much as she did this evening, wandering aimlessly from shop to shop. What was the use of struggling against these enormous forces, that could reckon all emotions, joy or sorrow, love or despair, only in tens of thousands? What difference, after all, did it really make what became of her in this huge maelstrom of New York? Who would notice, and who would remember for more than a few hours, what came to one girl in the hundreds of thousands?