Now, at last, Mary Turner let herself drift. It seemed to her that she had abandoned herself to fate in that hour when she threw herself into the river. Afterward, without any volition on her part, she had been restored to life, and set within an environment new and strange to her, in which soon, to her surprise, she discovered a vivid pleasure. So, she fought no more, but left destiny to work its will unhampered by her futile strivings. For the first time in her life, thanks to the hospitality of Aggie Lynch, secretly reinforced from the funds of Joe Garson, Mary found herself living in luxurious idleness, while her every wish could be gratified by the merest mention of it. She was fed on the daintiest of fare, for Aggie was a sybarite in all sensuous pleasures that were apart from sex. She was clothed with the most delicate richness for the first time as to those more mysterious garments which women love, and she soon had a variety of frocks as charming as her graceful form demanded. In addition, there were as many of books and magazines as she could wish. Her mind, long starved like her body, seized avidly on the nourishment thus afforded. In this interest, Aggie had no share--was perhaps a little envious over Mary's absorption in printed pages. But for her consolation were the matters of food and dress, and of countless junketings. In such directions, Aggie was the leader, an eager, joyous one always. She took a vast pride in her guest, with the unmistakable air of elegance, and she dared to dream of great triumphs to come, though as yet she carefully avoided any suggestion to Mary of wrong-doing.
In the end, the suggestion came from Mary Turner herself, to the great surprise of Aggie, and, truth to tell, of herself.
There were two factors that chiefly influenced her decision. The first was due to the feeling that, since the world had rejected her, she need no longer concern herself with the world's opinion, or retain any scruples over it. Back of this lay her bitter sentiment toward the man who had been the direct cause of her imprisonment, Edward Gilder. It seemed to her that the general warfare against the world might well be made an initial step in the warfare she meant to wage, somehow, some time, against that man personally, in accordance with the hysterical threat she had uttered to his face.