“Yes? Well, I’m tired of that stuff,” Gregory now added grimly and unbelievingly. “I suppose they told you to run back and tell me this so as to win my sympathy again? Oh, you little liar! You make me sick. What a sneak and a crook you really are!”
“Ed! Ed!” she now sobbed. “Please! Please! Won’t you understand how it is? They have watched every entrance every time we’ve gone out since I came here. It doesn’t make any difference which door you come through. They have men at every end. I didn’t know anything about it until I went upstairs. Really, I didn’t. Oh, I wish I could get out of all this! I’m so sick of it all. I told you that I’m fond of you, and I am. Oh, I’m almost crazy! I wish sometimes that I could die, I’m so sick of everything. My life’s a shabby mess, and now you’ll hate me all the time,” and she rocked to and fro in a kind of misery, and cried silently as she did so.
Gregory stared at her, amazed but unbelieving.
“Yes,” he insisted, “I know. The same old stuff, but I don’t believe it. You’re lying now, just as you have been all along. You think by crying and pretending to feel sad that you might get another chance to trick me, but you won’t. I’m out of this to-day, once and for all, and I’m through with you. There’s no use in my appealing to the police under this administration, or I’d do that. But I want to tell you this. If you follow me any longer, or any of this bunch around here, I’m going to the newspapers. There’ll be some way of getting this before the courts somewhere, and I’ll try it. And if you really were on the level and wanted to do anything, there’s a way, all right, but you wouldn’t do it if you had a chance, never, not in a million years. I know you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, Ed! Ed! You don’t know me, or how I feel, or what I’ll do,” she whimpered. “You haven’t given me a chance. Why don’t you suggest something, if you don’t believe me, and see?”
“Well, I can do that easily enough,” he replied sternly. “I can call that bluff here and now. Write me out a confession of all that’s been going on here. Let me hear you dictate it to a stenographer, and then come with me to a notary public or the district attorney, and swear to it. Now we’ll see just how much there is to this talk about caring for me,” and he watched her closely, the while she looked at him, her eyes drying and her sobs ceasing. She seemed to pause emotionally and stare at the floor in a speculative, ruminative mood. “Yes? Well, that’s different, isn’t it? I see how it is now. You didn’t think I’d have just the thing to call your bluff with, did you? And just as I thought, you won’t do it. Well, I’m onto you now, so good-day. I have your measure at last. Good-by!” and he started off.
“Ed!” she called, jumping up suddenly and starting after him. “Ed! Wait—don’t go! I’ll do what you say. I’ll do anything you want. You don’t believe I will, but I will. I’m sick of this life, I really am. I don’t care what they do to me now afterwards, but just the same I’ll come. Please don’t be so hard on me, Ed. Can’t you see—can’t you see—Ed—how I feel about you? I’m crazy about you, I really am. I’m not all bad, Ed, really I’m not—can’t you see that? Only—only——” and by now he had come back and was looking at her in an incredulous way. “I wish you cared for me a little, Ed. Do you, Ed, just a little? Can’t you, if I do this?”
He looked at her with mingled astonishment, doubt, contempt, pity, and even affection, after its kind. Would she really do it? And if she did what could he offer her in the way of that affection which she craved? Nothing, he knew that. She could never extricate herself from this awful group by which she was surrounded, her past, the memory of the things she had tried to do to him, and he—he was married. He was happy with his wife really, and could make no return. There was his career, his future, his present position. But that past of hers—what was it? How could it be that people could control another person in this way she claimed, especially scoundrels like these, and why wouldn’t she tell him about it? What had she done that was so terrible as to give them this power? Even if he did care for her what chance would he have, presuming her faithfulness itself, to either confront or escape the horde of secret enemies that was besetting him and her just now? They would be discovered and paraded forth at their worst, all the details. That would make it impossible for him to come forth personally and make the charge which would constitute him champion of the people. No, no, no! But why, considering all her efforts against him, should she come to his rescue now, or by doing so expect him to do anything for her by way of return? He smiled at her dourly, a little sadly.
“Yes. Well, Imogene, I can’t talk to you about that now, not for the present, anyhow. You’re either one of the greatest actresses and crooks that ever lived, or you’re a little light in the upper story. At any rate, I should think that you might see that you could scarcely expect me to like you, let alone to love you, all things considered, and particularly since this other thing has not been straightened out. You may be lying right now, for all I know—acting, as usual. But even so—let’s first see what you do about this other, and then talk.”
He looked at her, then away over the sea to where some boats were coming towards them.