and eager faces and smiles and laughter, and here, behind her, was the
very spirit of darkness calling her back. After an imperceptible
hesitation she turned.
Mark had not turned in his chair, but it was easy to discover how he had
known of her passing. A small oval mirror, fixed against the wall before
him, had shown her image. How much had it betrayed, she wondered, of her
guiltily stealthy pace? She went to him and found that he was leisurely
and openly examining her in the glass, as she approached, his chin
resting on one hand, his thin face perfectly calm, his eyes hazy with
content. It was a habit of his to regard her like a picture, but she had
never become used to it; she was always disconcerted by it, as she was
at this moment.
He rose, of course, when she was beside him, and asked her to sit down.
"But I've hardly touched a card," she said. "This isn't very
professional, you know, wasting a whole evening."
She was astonished to see him flush to the roots of his hair. His voice
shook. "Sit down, please."
She obeyed, positively inert with surprise.
"Do you think I keep you at this detestable business because I want the
money?" he asked. "Dear Heaven! Ruth, is that what you think of me?"
Fortunately, before she could answer, he went on: "No, no, no! I have
wanted to make you a free and independent being, my dear, and that is
why I have put you through the most dangerous and exacting school in the
world. You understand?"
"I think I do," she replied falteringly.
"But not entirely. Let me pour you some tea? No?"
He sighed, as he blew forth the smoke of a cigarette. "But you don't
understand entirely," he continued, "and you must. Go back to the old
days, when you knew nothing of the world but me. Can you remember?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Then you certainly recall a time when, if I had simply given
directions, you would have been mine, Ruth. I could have married you the
moment you became a woman. Is that true?" "Yes," she whispered, "that is
perfectly true." The coldness that passed over her taught her for the
first time how truly she dreaded that marriage which had been postponed,
but which inevitably hung over her head.
"But I didn't want such a wife," continued John Mark. "You would have
been an undeveloped child, really; you would never have grown up. No
matter what they say, something about a woman is cut off at the root
when she marries. Certainly, if she had not been free before, she is a
slave if she marries a man with a strong will. And I have a strong will,
Ruth--very strong!"
"Very strong, John," she whispered again. He smiled faintly, as if there
were less of what he wanted in that second use of the name. He went on:
"So you see, I faced a problem. I must and would marry you. There was
never any other woman born who was meant for me. So much so good. But,
if I married you before you were wise enough to know me, you would have
become a slave, shrinking from me, yielding to me, incapable of loving
me. No, I wanted a free and independent creature as my wife; I wanted a
partnership, you see. Put you into the world, then, and let you see men
and women? No, I could not do that in the ordinary way. I have had to
show you the hard and bad side of life, because I am, in many ways, a