"Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful lot of the other kind all my life."
Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and chickens and a cow!"
"How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?"
Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for pleasure—crazy about anything that promised gaiety and amusement—anything to make me forget.
"You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill—ill most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother—it's curious, but mother never said anything about her—and she cared for fashionable people.
"So I came to New York last winter—and you know the rest—I got tired physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me—and so many women urged me to do so many things—and I was unhappy about Rix—and then came this awful financial crash——"
"Stop thinking of it!"
"Yes; I mean to. I only wanted you to understand how, one by one, emotions and desires have been killed in me during the last four years.... And even the desire for wealth and position—which I clung to up to yesterday—somehow, now—this morning—has become little more than a dreamy wish.... I'd rather have quiet if I could—if there's enough money left to let me rest somewhere——"