[339]
] “Finally?”
“It can’t be otherwise—now.”
He turned swiftly on his heel and went the length of the room, then back to where she stood. He pulled up sharp and his lips snapped together.
“All right. But you leave one item out of the reckoning. As long as you bear my name, you respect it! If you persist in this—I’ll divorce you.”
“The name is yours. I am Nancy Bradshaw again.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Only what I said. You can have it back any time you want. I won’t make a move to stop you. You can have everything you’ve ever given me—everything. The one thing I had a right to keep—you’ve taken away. So what else matters?”
She walked slowly over to where her clothes hung behind a cretonne curtain, took down a black hat and pulled it over her shining hair. She stood there, shoulders drooping, head bent.
Outside the soft shuffle of the old watchman’s feet told he was going the rounds. Good-nights had been tossed from one to another of the departing company. That heavy quiet of night in a darkened theater rolled backstage. The world of make-believe had vanished. Only the shell remained.
Cunningham leaned a bit heavily against the door. For the first time life had thwarted, left him impotent, and a new sensation, when unpleasant, is difficult to handle.