She loved him. Already she loved him. Deeply.
“Perhaps I understand better than you think,” she replied calmly. “I happened to be in Paris, Vermont, one night. I met a queer old philosopher who ran the livery stable—I’ve forgotten his name. He told me about you—much!”
“You’ve been in Paris!”
“I remembered—a little poem of yours I had saved—had first appeared in a Paris paper. I stopped off there—to look up the poet. Naturally, I was interested to see what he might be like.—It was a rather unfortunate time. You had recently suffered a serious business setback. I decided to postpone my good wishes until a more appropriate occasion.”
“What night was it? Tell me frankly. Was it while they had me—locked up?”
He was so candid that his question demanded an answer equally candid.
“Yes,” she replied. Then after a time she leaned forward. “My dear boy,” she said softly, seriously, “you’ve kept things inside yourself, repressed and unvoiced so long, you’ve done yourself an injury. Why not tell me all about them? Won’t you believe I’d like to be your friend?”
“It’s a long story,” he repeated. “It’s the story of almost my entire life. And nobody wants to hear that!”
“I want to hear ‘that.’ And there is much time—before midnight.”
Then, as New England would express it, “one word led to another”, and before many minutes had passed Madelaine Theddon was adroitly drawing from Nathan all the hot, hard story of his sordid, perverted, mediocre past. He scarcely realized the girl was thus intriguing him. A great, relieving freedom lifted him, gave him one long, wide-open opportunity to unburden his tired heart. At times his voice broke with the stress of it.