And all at once she braced
herself although to meet an implacable enemy. She was not tender any
more. She was the Christine who had faced bailiffs and his father's
strange, gay friends--ice-cold and bitter and relentless. She took the
pictures from him. With a terrible ironic calm she sorted them from his
pockets, and spread them out on the table like a pack of cards. He dared
not look at her. He was afraid to see what she was seeing. She had torn
open the door of his secret chamber, and there in that blasting light was
his treasure, naked, defenceless. He could have cried out in his dread,
"Only don't say anything--don't say anything!"
"So that's what you liked so much, Robert--that's what you spent the money
on. It's the old story--beginning again--only worse." She added, almost
to herself:
"A vulgar, common woman."
She put her face between her hands. He could hear her quiet crying. It
was awful. His love for her was a torture. Because she was not wonderful
at all but human and pitiful like himself, he felt her grief like a knife
turning and turning in his own heart. But he could not comfort her. He
could only stare aghast at that row of faces--grinning, smirking,
arrogant, insolent faces.
It was true. The jolly lights had been turned out. The band had stopped
playing.
A vulgar, common woman!
* * * * *
He stood with his back to the Circus entrance where he could smell the
sawdust and hear the hum of the audience crowding into their seats.
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