The Restless Sex

"N-not very."

"Can I do anything? Wait a moment – " She continued on to her bed-room, unpinned her hat, drew on her working smock, and came slowly back, buttoning it.

"What's wrong, Steve?" she inquired.

"Nothing," said the girl, drearily. "I'm just – tired."

"Why – you've been crying!" murmured Helen, bending over her. "What is making you so unhappy, Steve? Don't you wish to tell me?"

"N-no."

"Shall I sit here by you, dear? I can work this afternoon – "

"No… It's nothing at all – truly it isn't."

"Had you rather be alone?"

"Yes."

Helen went slowly away toward the court where her nag and its rider were ready for her. Stephanie lay motionless, dumb, wretched, her bosom throbbing with emotions too powerful for her – yet too vague, too blind, to enlighten her.

Unawakened to passion, ignorant of it, regardless and disdainful of what she had never coped with, the mental and spiritual suffering was, perhaps, the keener.

Humiliation and grief that she was no longer first and alone in Cleland's heart and mind had grown into a sorrow deeper than she knew, deeper than she admitted to herself. All the childish and pettier emotions attended it, mocking her with her own frailty – ignoble jealousy, hard resentment, the primitive sarcasm born of envy – the white flash of hatred for those to whom this man turned for amusement – this man whom she had adored from boyhood.

Why had he cast her out of the first place in his heart and mind? He had even told her that he was in love with her. Why had he turned to this shameless dancer?

And to what others did he also turn to find amusement when she did not know where he was?

Had it been her fault? No. From the very first night that he had come back to her – in the very face of her happiness to have him again – he had shown her what kind of man he was – there at the Ball of All the Gods – with that dreadful Goddess of Night.

She turned feverishly, tortured by her thoughts, but neither they nor the hot pillow gave her any rest. They stung her like scorpions, setting every nerve on edge with something – anger, perhaps – something unendurable there in the silence of her room.

And at last she got up to make an end of it, once and for all. But the preparations took her some time – some cold water, brush and comb, and a chamois rag.

Cleland, now dressed for luncheon, humming a comic song under his breath and contentedly numbering his latest pencilled pages, heard the tap at his open door, and looked up cheerfully, hoping for Marie Cliff, a pre-prandial dance, and a pretty companion at luncheon. Tragedy entered, wearing the mask of Stephanie Quest.

"Hello!" he cried gaily, jumping up and coming toward her. "This is too delightful. Are you coming out to lunch with me, Steve?"

"Sit down a moment," she said. But he continued to stand; and she came over and stood beside his desk, resting one hand on it.

And, after a moment, lifting her grey eyes to his:

"I have borne a great deal from you. But there is an insult which you have offered me to-day that I shall not endure in silence."

"What insult?" he demanded, turning red.

"Making my studio a rendezvous for you and your – mistress!"

He knew what she meant instantly, and his wrath blazed:

"It was an accident. I don't know how you heard of it, but it was pure accident. Also, that is a rotten thing to say – "

"Is it! You once told me that you prefer to call a spade a spade! Oh, Jim! – you were clean once. What have you done!"

"But it's a lie – and an absurd one!"

"Do you think that of me, too – that I tell lies?"

"No. But you evidently believe one."

"It is too obvious to doubt – " Her throat was dry with the fierceness of her emotions and she choked a moment.

"Who told you?"

"I was there."

"Where?"

"In my bed-room. I had not gone out. I heard the maid tell you I was out motoring. I meant to speak to you – but you have been so – so unfriendly lately… And then that woman came in!" … Her grey eyes fairly blazed.

"Why do you do this to me?" she cried, clenching both hands. "It is wicked! – unthinkable! Why do you hold me in such contempt?"

Her fierce anger silenced him, and his silence lashed her until she lost her head.

"Do you think you can offer me such an affront in my own studio because I am really not your sister? – because your name is Cleland and mine is not? – because I was only the wretched, starved, maltreated child of drunken parents when your father picked me out of the gutter! Is that why you feel at liberty to affront me under my own roof – show your contempt for me? Is it?"

"Steve, you are mad!" he said. He had turned very white.

"No," she said, "but I'm at the limit of endurance. I can't stand it any longer. I shall go to-night to the man I married and live with him and find a shelter there – find protection and – f-forgetfulness – " Her voice broke but her eyes were the more brilliant and dangerous for the flashing tears:

"I know what you and my aunt talked over between you," she said. "You discussed the chances of my developing erratic, unscrupulous, morbid, immoral traits! You were anxious for fear I had inherited them. Probably now you think I have. Think as you please – !" she flashed out through her tears; "you have killed every bit of happiness in me. Remember it some day!"

She turned to go, and he sprang forward to detain her, but she twisted herself out of his arms and reeled back against the desk.

Then he had her in his arms again, and she stared at his white, tense face, all distorted by her blinding tears:

"I love you, Steve! That's all the answer I give you. That's my reply to your folly. I never loved anybody else; I never shall; I never can. I am clean. I don't know how it happens, but I am! They lie who tell you anything else. I'm like my father; I care for only one woman. I'm incapable of caring for any other.

"I don't know what I've done to you to make you say such things and think them. I consider you as my own kin; I respect and love you like a kinsman. But – God help me – I've gone further; I love you as a lover. I can't tear you out of my heart; I've tried because I saw no hope that you ever could fall in love with me – but I couldn't do it – I couldn't.

"If you go to the man you married I shall never love any other woman. That is the truth, and I know it, now!"

Her body was still rigid in his arms; her tense hands lay flat on his breast as though to repulse him.

But there was no strength in them and they had begun to tremble under the hard beating of his heart.

Her mouth, too, was quivering; her tear-wet eyes looked mutely into his; suddenly her body relaxed, yielded; and at his fierce embrace her hot mouth melted against his.