“Why did I ever meet you?” I said harshly to a passing taxicab.
And strange as it may seem, at that moment I had really worked myself into the spirit of the scene. I actually felt a blighted being, the victim of a woman’s wiles. Then she was there at my side, pale, agitated.
“I’m so grieved. Why didn’t you speak? If I’d only known you cared. But then, you know, nobody takes you seriously. Perhaps, though, it’s not too late. If you really, really care so much I’ll try to break off my engagement with Bunny.”
(Bunny was Mr. Jarraway Tope, an elderly Pittsburg manufacturer of suspenders—Tope’s “Never-tear Ever-wear Suspenders.”)
“No, no, it’s too late now,” I interrupted eagerly. “Things could never be the same. Besides, he loves you. He’s a good old fellow. He will make you happy, far happier than I could. He is rich; I am poor. It is better so.”
“Riches are not everything,” she pouted miserably.
“No, but they’re the best imitation of it I know. Oh, you hothouse flowers! You creatures of lace and luxury! You don’t know what it is to be poor, to live from hand to mouth. How could you be happy in a cottage—I mean a Brooklyn flat? No, no, Boadicia, we must not let sentiment blind us. Never will I drag you down.”
“But there’s no question of poverty. You make lots of money?”
“A mere pittance,” I cried bitterly. “It’s my publishers who make the money. I’m no man of business. On a few beggarly royalties how can I hold up my end? No, I must put the world between us. Oh, it will be all right. Some day when we are both old and grey, and sentiment lies buried under the frost of time, we will perhaps meet again, and, clasping hands, confess that all was for the best.”
“Oh, I hate to let you go away like that. If you have no money, I have.”