The Restless Sex

"If you believe," she said, "that my mind controls my heart, why don't you make it an intellectual argument with me? Why not appeal to my reason? Because I – I am intelligent enough to be open to conviction – if your logic proves sounder than – mine."

"I can't make love to you logically. Love doesn't admit of it."

"Love is logical – or it's piffle!"

"I don't know how to make intellectual love."

"You'd better learn."

"Could you give me a tip?" he asked timidly.

Then Helen threw back her pretty head and began to laugh with that irresponsible, unfeigned, full-throated and human laughter that characterized the primitive girl when her naïve sense of humour was stirred to response by her lover of the cave.

For Helen had caught a glimpse of this modern young caveman's intellectual brutality and bad temper for the first time in her life, and it was a vital revelation to the girl.

He had whacked her, verbally, violently, until, in her infuriated astonishment, it was made plain to her that there was much more to him than she had ever reckoned with. He had hurt her pride, dreadfully, he had banged her character about without mercy – handled her with a disdainful vigour and virility that opened her complacent brown eyes to a new vision and a new interpretation of man.

"Phil," she murmured, "do you realize that you were positively common in what you said to me up on that hill?"

"I know I was."

"You told me – " a slight shudder passed over her and he felt it in the shoulder that touched his – "you told me that you – you were 'fed up!'"

"I was!"

"And you, a poet – a man with an almost divine facility of language – "

"Sure," he said, grinning; "I'm artist enough to know the value of vulgarity. It gives a wonderful punch, Helen – once in a lifetime."

"Oh, Phil! You horrify me. I didn't understand that you are just a plain, every-day, bad-tempered, brutal, selfish and violent man – "

"Dearest, I am! And thank God you are woman enough to stand for it… Are you?"

They had reached the house and were standing on the porch now, her hands restlessly twisting in his sun-browned grasp, her pretty head averted, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Are you?" he repeated sternly.

"Am I, what? Oh, Phil, you hurt me – my rings hurt – "

"Then don't twist your fingers. And answer me; are you woman enough to stand for the sort of everyday human man that you say I am? Are you?"

She said something under her breath.

"Did you say yes?" he demanded.

She nodded, not looking at him.

Before he could kiss her she slid out of his grasp with a low exclamation of warning, and, looking around, he beheld the Belters, arm-in-arm, approaching across the lawn.

"Fido!" he muttered, "damn!" And he followed his divinity into the house.

CHAPTER XXXII

Helen kept her own council as long as the Belters remained at Runner's Rest, but as soon as they had departed she went to Stephanie's room and made a clean breast of it.

"What on earth do you suppose has happened to me, Steve?" she demanded, standing by the day-bed on which Stephanie was stretched out reading a novel and absorbing chocolates.

"What?" asked Stephanie, lifting her grey eyes.

"Well, there's the very deuce to pay with Phil Grayson. He isn't a bit nice to me. He isn't like himself. He bullies me."

"Why do you let him?"

"I – don't know. I resent it. He's entirely too bossy. He's taken possession of me and he behaves abominably."

"Sentimentally?"

"Yes."

"But you don't have to endure it!" exclaimed Stephanie, astonished.

"If I don't submit," said Helen, "I shall lose him. He'll go away. He says he will."

"Well, do you care what Phil Grayson does?" demanded Stephanie, amazed.

Then that intellectual, capable, intelligent and superbly healthy girl flopped down on her knees by Stephanie's day-bed and, laying her lovely head on the pillow, began to whimper.

"I – I don't know what's the matter with me," she stammered, "but my mind is full of that wretched man every minute of the day and half of the night. He is absolutely shameless; he makes love to me t-tyranically. It's impossible for a girl to keep her reserve – her d-dignity with a m-man who takes her into his arms and k-kisses her whenever he chooses – "

"What!" cried Stephanie, sitting bolt upright and staring at her friend. "Do you mean to tell me that Phil is that sort of man?"

"I didn't think so, either," explained Helen. "I've known him for ages. He's been so considerate and attentive and sweet to me – so gentle and self-effacing. I thought I could c-count on him. But a girl can't tell anything about a man – even when he's been an old and trusted friend of years."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Stephanie, blankly.

"Do? I suppose I'll go on doing what he wishes. I suppose I'll marry him. It looks that way. I don't seem to have any will power… It's such an odd sensation to be bullied."

"Are you in love with him?"

"I don't know. I suppose I am. It makes me simply furious… But I guess I am, Steve… If he'd behaved as agreeably and pleasantly as he always had behaved I should never have cared for him except in a friendly way. He always has paid his courtship to me in the nicest way… It was quite ideal, not disturbing, and we exchanged intellectual views quite happily and contentedly… And then, suddenly he – he flew into a most frightful temper and he told me that he was 'fed up!' My dear, can you imagine my rage and amazement? … And then he told me what he thought of me – oh, Steve! – the most horrid things ever said about a girl he said to me! I was breathless! I felt as though he had beaten me and dragged me about by my hair… And then – I don't know how it happened – but I w-waited for him, and we walked home together, and I understood him to say that I'd got to love him if I were a human girl… And I am… So – it's that way now with us… And when I think about it I am still bewildered and furious with him… But I don't dare let him go… There are other girls, you know."

Stephanie lay very still. Helen rose presently, turned and walked slowly to the door. There she paused for a moment, then turned. And Stephanie saw in her brown eyes an expression entirely new to her.

"Helen! You are in love with him!" she said.

"I'm afraid I am… Anyway, I shall not let him go until I am quite certain… It's abominable that he should have made of me a thing with which I never have had any patience – a girl whose heart has run away with her senses. And that's what he has done to me, I'm afraid."

Stephanie suddenly flushed: