"That I"m going to demand my rights."
"Demand?"
"Exactly."
"Your _rights_?"
"The right to love----"
Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:
"Are you demanding that I marry you?"
"I"m not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right--there are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices"--she paused and her eyes glowed in the shadows--"I gave you my soul and body then----"
"Gifts I never sought----"
"Yet you took them and I"m here a part of your life. What are you going to do with me? I"m not the negro race. I"m just a woman who loves you and asks that you treat her fairly."
"Treat you fairly! Did I ever want you? Or seek you? You came to me, thrust yourself into my office, and when I discharged you, pushed your way into my home. You won my boy"s love and made my wife think you were indispensable to her comfort and happiness. I tried to avoid you. It was useless. You forced yourself into my presence at all hours of the day and night. What happened was your desire, not mine. And when I reproached myself with bitter curses you laughed for joy! And you talk to me to-day of fairness!
You who dragged me from that banquet hall the night of my triumph to hurl me into despair! You who blighted my career and sent me blinded with grief and shame groping through life with the shadow of death on my soul! You who struck your bargain of a pound of flesh next to my heart, and fought your way back into my house again to hold me a prisoner for life, chained to the dead body of my shame--you talk to me about fairness--great G.o.d!"
He stopped, strangled with pa.s.sion, his tall figure towering above her, his face livid, his hands clutched in rage.
She laughed hysterically:
"Why don"t you strike! I"m not your equal in strength--I dare you to do it--I dare you to do it! I _dare_ you--do you hear?"
With a sudden grip she tore the frail silk from its fastenings at her throat, pressed close and thrust her angry face into his in a desperate challenge to physical violence.
His eyes held hers a moment and his hands relaxed:
"I"d like to kill you. I could do it with joy!"
"Why don"t you?"
"You"re not worth the price of such a crime!"
"You"d just as well do it, as to wish it. Don"t be a coward!" Her eyes burned with suppressed fire.
He looked at her with cold anger and his lip twitched with a smile of contempt.
The strain was more than her nerves could bear. With a sob she threw her arms around his neck. He seized them angrily, her form collapsed and she clung to him with blind hysterical strength.
He waited a moment and spoke in quiet determined tones:
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""I _dare_ you--do you hear?""]
"Enough of this now."
She raised her eyes to his, pleading with desperation:
"Please be kind to me just this last hour before you go, and I"ll be content if you give no more. I"ll never intrude again."
She relaxed her hold, dropped to a seat and covered her face with her hands:
"Oh, my G.o.d! Are you made of stone--have you no pity? Through all these years I"ve gone in and out of this house looking into your face for a sign that you thought me human, and you"ve given none. I"ve lived on the memories of the few hours when you were mine. I"ve sometimes told myself it was just a dream, that it never happened--until I"ve almost believed it.
You"ve pretended that it wasn"t true. You"ve strangled these memories and told yourself over and over again that it never happened. I"ve seen you doing this--seen it in your cold, deep eyes. Well, it"s a lie! You were mine! You shall not forget it--you can"t forget it--I won"t let you, I tell you!"
The voice broke again into sobs.
He stood with arms folded, watching her in silence. Her desperate appeal to his memories and his physical pa.s.sion had only stirred anger and contempt.
He was seeing now as he had never noticed before the growing marks of her negroid character. The anger was for her, the contempt for himself. He noticed the growth of her lips with age, the heavy sensual thickness of the negroid type!
It was inconceivable that in this room the sight of her had once stirred the Beast in him to incontrollable madness. There was at least some consolation in the fact that he had made progress. He couldn"t see this if he hadn"t moved to a higher plane.
He spoke at length in quiet tones:
"I am waiting for you to go. I have work to do to-night."
She rose with a quick, angry movement:
"It"s all over, then. There"s not a chance that you"ll change your mind?"
"Not if you were the last woman on earth and I the last man."
He spoke without bitterness but with a firmness that was final.
"All right. I know what to expect now and I"ll plan my own life."
"What do you mean?"
"That there"s going to be a change in my relations to your servants for one thing."
"Your relations to my servants?" he repeated incredulously.
"Yes."
"In what respect?"
"I"m not going to take any more insolence from Minerva----"
"Keep out of the kitchen and let her alone. She"s the best cook I ever had."
"If I keep this house for you, I demand the full authority of my position.
I"ll hire the servants and discharge them when I choose."
"You"ll do nothing of the kind," he answered firmly.