Part 27

"In themselves they have none. That's the philosophy of the peculiarity you've noted."

This truth, so galling to a lady, silenced Jane, made her bite her lips with rage. "I beg your pardon," she finally said. "I didn't realize that you were in love with Selma."

"Yes, I am in love with her," was Davy's astounding reply. "She's the noblest and simplest creature I've ever met."

"You don't mean you want to marry her!" exclaimed Jane, so amazed that she for the moment lost sight of her own personal interest in this affair.

Davy looked at her sadly, and a little contemptuously.

"What a poor opinion at bottom you women--your sort of women--have of woman," said he.

"What a poor opinion of men you mean," retorted she. "After a little experience of them a girl--even a girl--learns that they are incapable of any emotion that isn't gross."

"Don't be so ladylike, Jane," said Hull.

Miss Hastings was recovering control of herself. She took a new tack. "You haven't asked her yet?"

"Hardly. This is the second time I've seen her. I suspected that she was the woman for me the moment I saw her. To-day I confirmed my idea. She is all that I thought--and more. And, Jane, I know that you appreciate her, too."

Jane now saw that Davy was being thus abruptly and speedily confiding because he had decided it was the best way out of his entanglement with her. Behind his coolness she could see an uneasy watchfulness--the fear that she might try to hold him. Up boiled her rage--the higher because she knew that if there were any possible way of holding Davy, she would take it--not because she wished to, or would, marry him, but because she had put her mark upon him. But this new rage was of the kind a clever woman has small difficulty in dissembling.

"Indeed I do appreciate her, Davy," said she sweetly. "And I hope you will be happy with her."

"You think I can get her?" said he, fatuously eager. "You think she likes me? I've been rather hoping that because it seized me so suddenly and so powerfully it must have seized her, too. I think often things occur that way."

"In novels," said Jane, pleasantly judicial. "But in real life about the hardest thing to do is for a man to make a woman care for him--really care for him."

"Well, no matter how hard I have to try----"

"Of course," pursued Miss Hastings, ignoring his interruption, "when a man who has wealth and position asks a woman who hasn't to marry him, she usually accepts--unless he happens to be downright repulsive, or she happens to be deeply and hopefully in love with another man."

Davy winced satisfactorily. "Do you suspect," he presently asked, "that she's in love with Victor Dorn?"

"Perhaps," said Jane reflectively. "Probably. But I'd not feel discouraged by that if I were you."

"Dorn's a rather attractive chap in some ways."

Davy's manner was so superior that Jane almost laughed in his face. What fools men were. If Victor Dorn had position, weren't surrounded by his unquestionably, hopelessly common family, weren't deliberately keeping himself common--was there a woman in the world who wouldn't choose him without a second thought being necessary, in preference to a Davy Hull? How few men there were who could reasonably hope to hold their women against all comers.

Victor Dorn might possibly be of those few. But Davy Hull--the idea was ridiculous. All his advantages--height, looks, money, position--were excellent qualities in a show piece; but they weren't the qualities that make a woman want to live her life with a man, that make her hope he will be able to give her the emotions woman-nature craves beyond anything.

"He is very attractive," said Jane, "and I've small doubt that Selma Gordon is infatuated with him. But--I shouldn't let that worry me if I were you." She paused to enjoy his anxiety, then proceeded: "She is a level-headed girl. The girls of the working class--the intelligent ones--have had the silly sentimentalities knocked out of them by experience. So, when you ask her to marry you, she will accept."

"What a low opinion you have of her!" exclaimed Davy. "What a low view you take of life!"--most inconsistent of him, since he was himself more than half convinced that Jane's observations were not far from the truth.

"Women are sensible," said Jane tranquilly. "They appreciate that they've got to get a man to support them. Don't forget, my dear Davy, that marriage is a woman's career."

"You lived abroad too long," said Hull bitterly.

"I've lived at home and abroad long enough and intelligently enough not to think stupid hypocrisies, even if I do sometimes imitate other people and SAY them."

"I am sure that Selma Gordon would no more think of marrying me for any other reason but love--would no more think of it than--than YOU would!"

"No more," was Jane's unruffled reply. "But just as much. I didn't absolutely refuse you, when you asked me the other day, partly because I saw no other way of stopping your tiresome talk--and your unattractive way of trying to lay hands on me. I DETEST being handled."