They faced each other across the breakfast-table. It was only nine
o'clock, but the sun beat into the flat with the breath of a
furnace, and the air was foul and humid.
"I tell you," Carter was saying fiercely, "you look ill. You are
ill. You must go to the sea-shore. You must visit some of your
proud, friends at East Hampton or Newport. Then I'll know you're
happy and I won't worry, and I'll find a job. I don't mind the
heat-and I'll write you love letters"--he was talking very fast and
not looking at Dolly--"like those I used to write you, before----"
Dolly raised her hand. "Listen!" she said. "Suppose I leave you.
What will happen? I'll wake up in a cool, beautiful brass bed,
won't I--with cretonne window-curtains, and salt air blowing them
about, and a maid to bring me coffee. And instead of a bathroom
like yours, next to an elevator shaft and a fire-escape, I'll have
one as big as a church, and the whole blue ocean to swim in. And
I'll sit on the rocks in the sunshine and watch the waves and the
yachts--"
"And grow well again!" cried Carter. "But you'll write to me," he
added wistfully, "every day, won't you?"
In her wrath, Dolly rose, and from across the table confronted him.
"And what will I be doing on those rocks?" she cried. "You KNOW
what I'll be doing! I'll be sobbing, and sobbing, and calling out
to the waves: 'Why did he send me away? Why doesn't he want me?
Because he doesn't love me.
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