The Danger MarkChambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
General
The Danger Mark
Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Sooner or later," she said, "women will find you out, thoroughly."
"And then, just think what a rush there will be to marry me!"
"There will be a rush to avoid you, Duane. And it will set in before you
know it--" She thought of the recent gossip coupling his name with
Rosalie's, reddened and bit her lip in silence. But somehow the thought
irritated her into speech again:
"Fortunately, I was among the first to find you out--the first, I
think."
"Heavens! when was that?" he asked in pretended concern, which
infuriated her.
"You had better not ask me," she flashed back. "When a woman suddenly
discovers that a man is untrustworthy, do you think she ever forgets
it?"
"Because I once kissed you? What a dreadful deed!"
"You forget the circumstances under which you did it."
He flushed; she had managed to hurt him, after all. He began patiently:
"I've explained to you a dozen times that I didn't know----"
"But I _told_ you!"
"And I couldn't believe you----"
"But you expect me to believe _you_?"
He could not exactly interpret her bright, smiling, steady gaze.
"The trouble with you is," she said, "that there is nothing to you but
good looks and talent. There was once, but it died--over in
Europe--somewhere. No woman trusts a man like you. Don't you know it?"
His smile did not seem to be very genuine, but he answered lightly:
"When I ask people to have confidence in me, it will be time for them to
pitch into me."
"Didn't you once ask me for your confidence--and then abuse it?" she
demanded.
"I told you I loved you--if that is what you mean. And you doubted it so
strenuously that, perhaps I might be excused for doubting it myself....
What is the use of talking this way, Geraldine?"
There was a ring of exasperation in her laughter. She lifted his glass,
sipped a little, and, looking over it at him:
"I drink to our doubts concerning each other: may nothing ever occur to
disturb them."
Her cheeks had begun to burn, her eyes were too bright, her voice
unmodulated.
"Whether or not you ever again take the trouble to ask me to trust you
in that way," she said, "I'll tell you now why I don't and why I never
could. It may amuse you. Shall I?"
"By all means," he replied amiably; "but it seems to me as though you
are rather rough on me."
"You were rougher with me the first time I saw you, after all those
years. I met you with perfect confidence, remembering what you once
were. It was my first grown-up party. I was only a fool of a girl,
merely ignorant, unfit to be trusted with a liberty I'd never before
had.... And I took one glass of champagne and it--you know what it
did.... And I was bewildered and frightened, and I told you; and--you
perhaps remember how my confidence in my old play-fellow was requited.
Do you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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