Mrs. Fargus, seeing at last that the situation compelled her to speak, rested her chin on her palm and said as though to herself:
"Eh, eh!" the lawyer cried instantly, shooting a sharp look, "a moment ago that overwhelmed you. But you are reconciled already, I suppose."
She showed some confusion, but returned immediately:
"Sure I'm shocked; poor fellow, after all he did love me."
Displeased to find her self-possessed, the lawyer, not to waken her mistrust, seemed to accept her attitude by launching into a diatribe.
"Yes, yes, cling to your respectability. You women are all the same. Virtue always! Do you do it to fool us or yourselves? Come now, you know that old Fargus's death is a stroke of luck! Why the deuce, then, don't you admit it?"
He searched her face with aroused curiosity, saying to himself, "No, my lady, you bet I don't." Then continuing his plan of battle he occupied himself with his plate.
"You brought him, the body, back," she asked presently.
"No," he answered irritably, and pushed back his plate with impatience.
"Why not?" she asked, noticing his annoyance.
"That is a long story and goes with the rest," he said rising. "Now, my dear, we'll get down to it."
In the parlor, as he was taking a chair, he recollected himself and demanded with a jerk of his head:
"I sent the girl away," she answered, "as you said."
"Nevertheless," he replied slowly, "I guess I'll satisfy myself of that."
"Yes, I supposed you would," she said with a shrug, "I left the gas on."
The unlooked-for reply halted him. He vacillated a moment suspiciously, wondering whether to accept the situation, but, the shyster prevailing, he turned on his heel and went up the stairs.
The woman smiled with the consciousness of a first advantage. But no sooner did the steps creak than she abandoned herself to a paroxysm of despair, twisting and turning the scarf in her hands until it cut them, as though to fight with the physical sting the agony of the mind. Yet in this violent return to her first agitation there was nothing to suggest grief for another; rather she seemed a prey to the torments of the gambler who, by a sudden upset, sees a fortune elude his fingers, dissipating in the air. She was, at the first glance, of that gay and fragile class who comprehend nothing but pleasure and see pleasure bounded only by the narrow limits of youth, into which they wish to compress all emotions, all desires, and all sensations; who pursue their ideals, palpitating and with bandaged eyes, and are consumed alike by their gratification and their hunger. On them weigh perhaps the heaviest the inequalities of society. Mixtures of desires and scruples, peculiarly American, swayed by conflicting ideals and prejudices, they wish to taste of the glittering world at any price except at the price of outward respectability. A young man attracted to Sheila Fargus by her facile beauty would have mistaken her for an adventuress or a saint. A man of the world, knowing her weakness and her fetishes, would have recognized that she might become either.