Part 53

Selma was abruptly overcast and ominously silent. She wished she had not been turned so far by her impulse of penitence--wished she had held to the calm and deliberate part of her resolve about Jane--the part that involved keeping aloof from her. However, Jane, the tactful--hastened to shift the conversation to generalities of the softest kinds--talked about her college life--about the inane and useless education they had given her--drew Selma out to talk about her own education--in the tenement--in the public school, at night school, in factory and shop. Not until they had been walking in the woods nearly two hours and Selma was about to go home, did Victor, about whom both were thinking all the time, come into the conversation again. It was Jane who could no longer keep away from the subject--the one subject that wholly interested her nowadays. Said she:

"Victor Dorn is REALLY almost well, you think?"

After a significant pause Selma said in a tone that was certainly not encouraging, "Obviously."

"I was altogether wrong about Doctor Charlton," said Jane. "I'm convinced now that he's the only really intelligent doctor in town. I'm trying to persuade father to change to him."

"Well, good-by," said Selma. She was eager to get away, for she suddenly felt that Jane was determined to talk about Victor before letting her go.

"You altered toward me when I made that confession--the night of the riot," said Jane abruptly. "Are you in love with him, too?"

"No," said Selma.

"I don't see how you could help being," cried Jane.

"That's because you don't know what it is to be busy," retorted Selma. "Love--what you call love--is one of the pastimes with your sort of people. It's a lazy, easy way of occupying the thoughts."

"You don't know me as well as you think you do," said Jane. Her expression fascinated Selma--and made her more afraid than ever.

Impulsively Selma took Jane by the arm. "Keep away from us," she said. "You will do no good. You can only cause unhappiness--perhaps most of all to yourself."

"Don't I know that!" exclaimed Jane. "I'm fighting it as hard as I can. But how little control one has over oneself when one has always been indulged and self-indulgent."

"The man for you is David Hull," said Selma.

"You could help him--could make a great deal of a person out of him."

"I know it," replied Jane. "But I don't want him, and he--perhaps you didn't know that he is in love with you?"

"No more than you are with Victor Dorn," said Selma. "I'm different from the women he has known, just as Victor is different from the men you meet in your class. But this is a waste of time."

"You don't believe in me at all," cried Jane. "In some ways you are very unjust and narrow, Selma."

Selma looked at her in that grave way which seemed to compel frankness. "Do YOU believe in yourself?" she asked.

Jane's glance shifted.

"You know you do not," proceeded Selma. "The women of your class rarely have sincere emotions because they do not lead sincere lives. Part of your imaginary love for Victor Dorn is desire to fill up idle hours. The rest of it is vanity--the desire to show your power over a man who seems to be woman-proof." She laughed a little, turned away, paused. "My mother used to quote a French proverb--'One cannot trifle with love.' Be careful, Jane--for your own sake. I don't know whether you could conquer Victor Dorn or not. But I do know IF you could conquer him it would be only at the usual price of those conquests to a woman."

"And what is that?" said Jane.

"Your own complete surrender," said Selma.

"How wise you are!" laughed Jane. "Who would have suspected you of knowing so much!"

"How could I--a woman--and not unattractive to men--grow up to be twenty-one years old, in the free life of a working woman, without learning all there is to know about sex relations?"

Jane looked at her with a new interest.

"And," she went on, "I've learned--not by experience, I'm glad to say, but by observation--that my mother's proverb is true. I shall not think about love until I am compelled to. That is a peril a sensible person does not seek."

"I did not seek it," cried Jane--and then she halted and flushed.

"Good-by, Jane," said Selma, waving her hand and moving away rapidly. She called back--"On ne badine pas avec l'amour!"