"Ruth Holland is not a woman to speak like that about, Amy," he said with unconcealed anger.
"She's not a decent woman! She's not a respectable woman! She's a bad woman! She's a low woman!"
She could not hold it back. She knew she looked unlovely, knew she was saying things that would not make her loved. She could not help it. Deane turned away from her. After a minute he got a little control of himself and instead of the hot things that had flashed up, said coldly: "I don't think you know what you're talking about."
"Of course I couldn't hope to know as much as _she_ does," she jeered. "However," she went on, with more of a semblance of dignity, "I do know a few things. I know that society cannot countenance a woman who did what that woman did. I know that if a woman is going to selfishly take her own happiness with no thought of others she must expect to find herself outside the lives of decent people. Society must protect itself against such persons as she. I know that much--fortunately."
Her words fortified her. She, certainly, was in the right. She felt that she had behind her all those women of that afternoon. Did any of them receive Ruth Holland? Did they not all see that society must close in against the individual who defied it? She felt supported.
For the minute he stood there looking at her--so absolutely unyielding, so satisfied in her conclusions,--those same things about society and the individual that he had heard from the rest of them; like the rest of them so satisfied with the law she had laid down--law justifying hardness of heart and closing in against the sorrow of a particular human life; from Amy now that same look, those same words. For a little time he did not speak. "I'm awfully sorry, Amy," was all he said then.
He stood there in miserable embarrassment. He always kissed her good-by.
She saw his hesitancy and turned to the other room. "Hadn't you better hurry?" she laughed. "You have so many calls to make--and some of them so important!"
It was quiet that evening in the house of Cyrus Holland; the noises that living makes were muffled by life's awe of death, even sounds that could not disturb the dying guarded against by the sense of decorum of those living on. Downstairs were people who had come to inquire for the man they knew would not be one of them again. For forty years Cyrus Holland had been a factor in the affairs of the town. He was Freeport's senior banker, the old-fashioned kind of banker, with neither the imagination nor the daring to make of himself a rich man, or of his bank an institution using all the possibilities of its territory. In venturing days he remained cautious. His friends said that he was sane--responsible; men of a newer day put it that he was limited, lacking in that boldness which makes the modern man of affairs. He had advised many men and always on the side of safety. No one had grown rich through his suggestions, but more than one had been saved by his counsels. With the expansion of the business of the town newer banks had gone ahead of his, and when they said he was one of the good substantial men of the community they were indicating his limitations with his virtues. Such a man, not a brilliant figure through his lifetime, would be lamented in his passing. They had often said that he failed in using his opportunities; what they said now was that he had never abused them--death, as usual, inducing the living to turn the kindly side to the truth about the dying.