“No, indeed, you mean Mr. Drake. But you are mistaken. Mr. Drake has
been a good friend to me, but he isn't anything else, and doesn't want
to be. Can't you see that when you think of me and talk of me as you
would of some other women you hurt me and degrade me, and I can not bear
it? You see I am crying again--goodness knows why. But I sha'n't give up
my profession. The idea of such a thing! It's ridiculous! Think of Glory
in a convent! One of the poor Clares perhaps!”
“Hush!”
“Or back in the island serving out sewing at a mothers' meeting! Give it
up! Indeed I won't!”
“You shall and you must!”
“Who'll make me?”
“_I_ will!”
Then she laughed out wildly, but stopped on the instant and looked up at
him with glistening eyes. An intense blush came over her face, and her
looks grew bright as his grew fierce. A moment afterward the waiting
maid, with an inquisitive expression, was clearing the table and keeping
a smile in reserve for “the lovers' quarrel!”
Some of the Guardsmen were in the train going back, and at the next
station they changed to the carriage in which Glory and John were
sitting. Apparently they had dined before leaving their club at
Maidenhead, and they talked at Glory with covert smiles. “Going to the
Colosseum tonight?” said one. “If there's time,” said another. “Oh,
time enough. The attraction doesn't begin till ten, don't you know, and
nobody goes before.” “Tell me she's rippin'.” “Good--deuced good.”
Glory was sitting with her back to the engine drumming lightly on the
window and looking out at the setting sun. At first she felt a certain
shame at the obvious references, but, piqued at John's silence,
she began to take pride in them, and shot glances at him from under
half-closed eyelids. John was sitting opposite with his arms folded. At
the talk of the men he felt his hands contract and his lips grow cold
with the feeling that Glory belonged to everybody now and was common
property. Once or twice he looked at them and became conscious of an
impression, which had floated about him since he left the Brotherhood,
that nearly every face he saw bore the hideous stamp of self-indulgence
and sensuality.
But the noises of the train helped him not to hear, and he looked out
for London. It lay before them under a canopy of smoke, and now and then
a shaft from the setting sun lit up a glass roof and it glittered like a
sinister eye. Then there came from afar, over the creaking and groaning
of the wheels and the whistle of the engine, the deep, multitudinous
murmur of that distant sea. The mighty tide was rising and coming up
to meet them. Presently they were dashing into the midst of it, and
everything was drowned in the splash and roar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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