"Cutty, I'd like to curl up in some corner and cry, gratefully. I didn't
know there were such men. I just don't know what to do. It isn't as
if you were asking me to be your wife. And as you say, I can't accept
money. There is a pride in me that rejects the whole thing; but it may
be the same fool pride that has cut away my friends. I ought to fall on
your neck with joy: and here I am trying to look round corners! You
are my father's friend, my mother's, mine. Why shouldn't I accept the
proposition? You are alone, too. You have a perfect right to do as you
please with your money, and I have an equally perfect right to accept
your gifts. We are all afraid of the world, aren't we? That's probably
at the bottom of my doddering. Cutty, what is love?" she broke off,
whimsically.
"Looking into mirrors and hunting for specks," he answered, readily.
"I mean seriously."
"So do I. Before I went round to the stage entrance to take your mother
out to supper I used to preen an hour before the mirror. My collar, my
cravat, my hair, the nap on my stovepipe, my gloves--terrible things!
And what happened? Your dad, dressed in his office clothes, came along
like a cyclone, walked all over my toes, and swooped up your mother
right from under my nose. Now just look the proposition over from all
angles. Think of yourself; let the old world go hang. They'll call
it alimony. In a year or so you'll be free; and some chap like Tommy
Conover will come along, and bang! You'll know all about love. Here's
old Brooklyn Bridge. I'll see you to the elevator. All nonsense that you
should have the least hesitance."
Fifteen minutes later he was striding along Park Row. By the swing of
his stride any onlooker would have believed that Cutty was in a hurry to
arrive somewhere. Instead, one was only walking. Suddenly he stopped in
the middle of the sidewalk with the two currents of pedestrians flowing
on each side of him, as a man might stop who saw some wonderful cloud
effect. But there was nothing ecstatical in his expression; on the
contrary, there was a species of bewildered terror. The psychology of
all his recent actions had in a flash become vividly clear.
An unbelievable catastrophe had overtaken him. He loved Kitty, loved her
with an intense, shielding passion, quite unlike that which he had given
her mother. Such a thing could happen! He offered not the least combat;
the revelation was too smashing to admit of any doubt. It was not
a recrudescence of his love for Molly, stirred into action by the
association with Molly's daughter. He wanted Kitty for himself, wanted
her with every fibre in his body, fiercely. And never could he tell
her--now.