Teddy was down on his knees beside her, his arm flung round her neck. "Ma! Good old ma! Dear old ma! Don’t cry! For God’s sake don’t cry! Stop _crying_, ma!" he shouted, in an imploring passion as strange, harsh, and unnatural as her own. "Here’s the money I had saved for my new clothes. Take it and go and pay something on the gas bill. There! There! Stop! For God’s sake! For your little boy’s sake! I love you, ma. Only stop! There! That’s better! Calm down, ma! Everything will be all right, and I’ll—I’ll get the new clothes by and by." But in his heart he was saying, "To hell with Collingham & Law’s!" as he laid the bill before her. CHAPTER VIII Jennie cried herself to sleep that Wednesday night, and, in the morning, cried herself awake. She was in no doubt as to the motive of her tears; she was sorry for having put a gulf between her and the man she loved by marrying one she didn’t care for. Why she didn’t care for him was beyond her power of analysis. He was good and kind and tender; he was rocklike and steady and strong. In a forceful way he was almost handsome, and some day he would be rich. But there was the fact that, her heart being given to the one man, her nerves shuddered at the other. The explanation she used to give, that the lividness of the scar on his forehead frightened her, was no longer tenable, since the mark tended to fade out. The other infirmity, his limp, was also less conspicuous, for, though he would never walk as if his foot had not been crushed, he walked as well as many other men. It wasn’t these peculiarities; it wasn’t any one thing in itself; it was simply that she didn’t love him and never would. Whereas, she did love another man. She loved his violet eyes, his brown mustache, his flashing teeth, his selfishness, his cruelty. She loved his system of starving her out, his habit of keeping her in anguish. Too much reasonableness was hard for her to assimilate, like too much water to a portulaca. And Bob had been so reasonable. He had tried to explain himself. He had used words that scared, that shocked her. Polygamous! Monogamous! The very sounds suggested anatomy or impropriety. Nevertheless, she could have pardoned this language as an eccentricity if, in the dimness of the parson’s hall, he hadn’t taken her in his arms and kissed her. This possibility was something she forgot when she followed him up the rectory’s brownstone steps. For the inadvertence she blamed herself the more, since, throughout the winter, she had never once lost sight of it. Whenever he had proposed to her, the advantages of marrying so much money had been offset by her terror at his "pawing her about." With no high-flown ideas as to virtue, Jennie would have fought like a wildcat for her virginity of mind and body till ready of her own free will to give them up. And here she had sold herself to Bob Collingham, a man whose touch made her shrink. "I can’t live with you!" she had cried, as she tore herself from his embrace.