_ PART TWO
CHAPTER XVI
"I've got something for you," Gordon said suddenly.
"I hope it's pretty," she replied, leaning forward, resting against his shoulder.
He brought from his pocket the slender, looped necklace of seed pearls. It was faintly visible in the dark, the diamond clasp made a small glint. She took it eagerly from him. "I'll light a match," he told her. In the minute, orange radiance the pearls shimmered in her fingers.
"But it's wonderful!" she exclaimed, unable to suppress her surprise at his unerring choice; "it's exactly right. Have you been to Stenton? however could you get this here?"
"Oh, I know a few things," he assured her; "I got an eye. Let me put it on for you." He took it from her, and his hands fumbled about her smooth throat. He required a long time to fasten it. The intoxication of the subtlety of her sex welled from hand to head. He kissed her still lips until he ceased from sheer lack of breath. He drew her close to him, with an arm about her pliant waist.
"I've been thinking of you in those pretty clothes," he admitted.
"All lace and webby pink silk and ribbands underneath," she reminded him; "but only for you, and satin trains and diamonds for the others."
Her words winged like little flames into his imagination. He whispered in her ear, "Richmond." She stiffened in his arms as if that single word had the power to freeze her. "We'll see, we'll see," he added hastily, fearing to dispel her complacency. "Paris is a long way ... a man could never come back."
"I didn't know you were so cautious," she challenged; "I thought you were bolder--that's your reputation in Greenstream, a bad one for a man or woman to cross."
"So I've been," he acknowledged; "I told you I wouldn't have hesitated a while back."
"What is holding you now--your wife? She would soon get over it. She's only a girl, she hasn't had enough experience to hold a man. Besides, she must know by now that you only married her for money; she must know you don't care for her; women always find out."
The bald, incontestable statement of his reason for marrying Lettice disconcerted him. He had never made the acknowledgment of putting it into words to himself, and no one else had openly guessed, had dared....
Suddenly it appeared to him in the light of a possible act of cowardice--Lettice, a girl, blinded by affection. And, equally, it was undeniably true that he did not care for her ... he did not care for her? that realization too carried a slight sting. But neither did he care for Meta Beggs; something different attracted him to the latter; she--she brought him out, that was it; she ministered to his pleasure, his desire, his--
"Don't," she said firmly.
His balked feelings overmastered him, and he disregarded her prohibition. She slipped from his grasp as lithely as the serpentine pearls had run through his fingers.
"Haven't you learned," she demanded, standing, "that I can't be bought with silk stockings or a little necklace? Or, perhaps, you are cheap, and I have been entirely wrong.... I'm going to get something to eat, with the people who brought me from Greenstream. I will be back here in two hours, but it will be for the last time. You must decide one way or the other while I am gone. You may stay or leave; I'm going to leave. Remember--no more penny kisses, no more meetings like this; it must be all or nothing. Some man will take me to Paris, have me." She dissolved against the dark of the maple grove. _