“Understand me,” said Dangerfield loyally; “I love her.”
“I understand the distinction.”
“What I mean is that the great madness has passed. If it had not I should have been consumed by it. The feeling that has succeeded, the feeling that has given me the power to look out of myself—the thing you feel there in my work, is the feeling of absolute tranquillity with all the world. I have made the harbor. As for Inga, she has a right to everything in my life, nothing could ever make me give her up. I am bound to her by gratitude which nothing can ever shake and at the bottom, Bob, I know that the best thing for me would be to live her life, to stay out of all the old life, keep out of the society rigmarole and the parade.”
“My boy, you are quite right,” said De Gollyer with a smile. “But will you do it? You’ve been a man of the world and when you once get that point of view it’s in the blood. It calls you whether you’re in Timbuctoo or buried in a shanty in Harlem. Things like that are in the blood, Dan, and then it’s something to come back, to feel the joy of the fight and, damn it, it’s your right to feel that.”
The door opened and Inga came in, hesitating a moment on the threshold with an inquiring glance at the two men who were relaxed in their moment of intimacy.
“We’ve been talking over plans for the exhibition,” said De Gollyer glibly. “It must be a smasher, the biggest thing of the season. I’m going to bring up a couple of men to-morrow, Mrs. Dangerfield. We are going to make Dan the sensation of the town.”
“I am very glad,” she said, with a nod of her head. She looked at them a moment and then took a seat quietly. She knew that they had not been discussing what he had said.
Dangerfield arose and coming over to her put his hand lightly over her head. She looked up quickly and smiled, but into her heart again there crept a sense of something undecipherable and threatening, the end of something, the beginning of a new confusing phase, a new world which came crowding against her.