It keeps me awake nights
just to think of you over here--alone. How long is the torture to go
on?"
Jane, I tried, but if I had frankly and courageously shown Polk Hayes
what was in my heart for him at that moment, I couldn't have answered
for the results.
From the time I was eighteen until I was twenty the same sort of assault
and battery had been handed out to me from him. He had beaten me with
his love. He didn't want me--he doesn't want any woman except so long as
he is uncertain that he can get her. Just because I had been firm with
him when even a child and denied him, he has been merciless. And now
that I am a woman and armed for the combat, it will be to the death.
Shall I double and take refuge in a labyrinth of subterfuge or turn and
fight? So I temporized to-day.
"It is lonely--but not quite 'torture' to me, with the family so close,
across the street," I answered him, and I went on whipping the lace on a
piece of fluff I am making, to discipline myself because I loathe a
needle so. "Please don't you worry over me, dear." I raised my eyes to
his and I tried the common citizenship look. It must have carried a
little way for he flushed, the first time I ever saw him do it, and his
hand with the cigarette in it shook.
"Evelina, are you real or a--farce?" he asked, after a few minutes of
peace.
"I'm trying to be real, Polk," I answered, and this time I raised my
eyes with perfect frankness.
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