She Buildeth Her House

by Will Levington Comfort

He smiled.

"I feel burnt out, too," she went on softly. "It has been strange to be with you again—almost like—those early mornings.... Did you ever hear me calling you—'way off there in the West? I used to lie awake, all feverish after you went away, calling in a whisper, 'Quentin—Quentin!...' It seemed you must come, if you were alive. There were times after you went away, that I would have given this week's victory, which I saw from afar,—to have you rush in for just one hour!... In God's name," she cried suddenly, "is there really this sort of honor in living man—is it because you hate me—or do you have to drink to take a woman in your arms? You, who used to be—singing flames?"

Charter was not unattracted, but his self-command was strangely imperious. There was magnetism now in the old passion—but a flutter of wings broke the attraction.... Darkness covered the wings, and the song was stilled; yet in that faint rustling, was enchantment which changed to brute matter—these open arms and the rising breast.

"I'm afraid it is as you said—about the anæmic priest," he muttered laughingly.... And then it occurred to him that there might have been a trick to her tempting.... From this point he was sexless and could pity her, though his nerves were raw from her verbal punishments. It was altogether new in his experience—this word-whipping; and though he had not sharpened a sentence in retaliation, he could not but see the ghastly way in which a woman is betrayed by her temper, which checks a man's passion like a sudden fright. Between a woman given to rages and her lover—lies a naked sword. Consummate, in truth, is the siren who has mastered the art of silence.... Selma Cross sank back into a chair. The world's wear was on her brow and under her eyes, as she laughed bitterly.

"You always had a way of making me sick of life," she said strangely. "I wonder if ever there was a humiliation so artistically complete as mine?"

This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be quite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had been the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an actress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not prepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman, Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his theory was amazingly strengthened here—the theory that moral derangement results from excessive simulation.

"You—would—not—kiss—me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like to believe—that you're trying to be true to some one,—but it's all rot that there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you—you spook!"

"You said you had a lover——"

She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in her tone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... I think the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is that you have refused to ask why I brought you here—refused even to utter the name—of the woman you expected to see—in my presence.... You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God resurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you—or both—to the point of death! Either way—remember this—I'll be square as a die—to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I mean—to-morrow, I think...."

He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for the elevator.