I'm a thing of freedom--I
can't be caged, and so we'd go on quarrelling and kissing, kissing and
quarrelling, until I went out of my mind. You'd want to make me over and
I'd want to make you over, like two foolish children fighting at play."
It was true what she had said, and he realized it, even though he
protested against it. She was a thing of freedom as much as one of the
swallows that flashed by in the sunlight.
"And you don't want to marry me? You want to be free--to be rich?"
"It isn't the money--but I don't want to marry."
"Have you ever loved me, I wonder?" he asked a little bitterly.
For an instant she hesitated, trying in some fierce self-reproach to
be honest. "I thought so once, and I suppose I'll think so again,"
she answered. "The truth is I've loved you some days, and some days I
haven't. I've never believed much in it, you know--I wasn't that kind of
woman. It always meant so much less to me than to others."
It was true again, he admitted it. She had never been--and he had
always known it--"that kind of woman." She had safely mocked at sex
only because she had never felt its significance.
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