"Steve, dearest——"
"Oh, Jim," she stammered, "I haven't even told you how those inherited traits have raised the deuce with me. I've got in me all the low instincts, all the indolence, the selfish laziness, the haphazard, irresponsible, devil-may-care traits of the man who was my own father!"
"Steve——!"
"Let me tell you! I've got to tell you. I can't keep it any longer. It was something in Oswald that appealed to that gypsy side of me—awoke it, I think. The first time I ever saw him, as a boy, and under disagreeable circumstances, I felt an odd inclination for him. He was like me, and I sensed it! I told you that once. It's true. Something in him appealed to the vagabond recklessness and irresponsibility latent in me—the tendency to wander, the indolent desire to drift and explore pleasant places.... After you went abroad I met him. I wrote you about it. I liked him. He fascinated me. There was something in common—something common in common between us.... I went to his studio, at first with Helen, and also when others were there. Then I went alone. I didn't care, knowing there was really no harm in going, and also being at the age when defiance of convention is more or less attractive to every girl.
"He was fascinating. He was plainly in love with me. But that means nothing to a girl except the subtle excitement and flattery of the fact. But he was what I wanted—a fellow vagabond!
"Every time I came into town I went to his studio. My aunt had no idea what I was up to. And we did have such good times, Jim!—you see he was successful then, and he had a wonderful studio—and a car—and we ran out into the country and then returned to take tea in his studio.... And, Jim, it was all right—but it was not good for me."
She clasped his arm with both of hers and rested her head on his shoulder; and went on talking in a steadier and more subdued voice:
"I didn't write you about it; I was very sure you wouldn't approve. And my head was stuffed full of modernism and liberty and urge and the necessity for self-expression. I felt that I had a perfect right to enjoy myself.... And then came trouble. It always does.... Oswald's father, Chiltern Grismer, came to the hospital one day, terribly wrought up and looking ghastly.
"My aunt had gone to New York to consult a specialist, but he asked for me, and I came down to the private reception room. I was a graduate nurse then. Oh, Jim!—it was quite dreadful. He seemed to be scared until he saw that I was. Then he was fearfully harsh with me. He told me that my aunt was about to begin suit against him to recover some money—a great deal of money—which my aunt pretended I should have inherited from my grandmother, Mr. Grismer's sister.
"He said we were two adventuresses and that he would expose me and my unhappy origin—all that horror of my childhood——"