Athalie

"I suppose not.... Well, Athalie; you are very wonderful to

me--merciful, forgiving, nobly blind--God!" he muttered under his

breath, "I don't understand how you can be so generous and gentle with

me,--I don't, indeed."

"If you only knew how easy it is to care for you," she said with that

sweet fearlessness so characteristic of her.

He bit his lips in silence.

Presently she said: "I suppose there'll be gossip in the other room.

Rosalie and Cecil will be cynical and they also will try to be witty

at our expense. But I don't care. Do you?"

"Shall we go in?"

"No.... I haven't had you for four years. If you don't care what is

said about us, I don't." And she looked up at him with the most

engaging candour.

"I'm only thinking about you, Athalie--"

"Don't bother to, Clive. Pretty nearly everything has been said about

me, I fancy. And, unless it might damage you I'll go anywhere with

you, do anything with you. I know that I'm all right; and I care no

longer what others say or think."

"But you know," he said, "that is a theory which will not work--"

"You are wrong, Clive. Nobody cares what sort of character a popular

actress may have. Her friends are not disturbed by her reputation; the

public crowds to see her. And it's about that way with me, I imagine.

Because I don't suppose many people believe me to be respectable.

Only--there is no man alive who can say of his own knowledge that I am

not,--whatever he and his brothers and sisters may imagine."

"So why should I care?--as long as the public affords me an honest

living! I know what I am, and have been. And the knowledge, so far,

does not keep me awake at night."

She laughed--the sweet, fresh, unembarrassed laugh of innocence,--not

that ignorance and stupidity which is called innocence, but innocence

based on a worldly wisdom which neither her intelligence nor her

experience permitted her to escape.

After a short silence he bent forward and laid one hand on a crystal

which stood clasped by a tiny silver tripod on the table beside her

bed.

"So you did develop your--qualities--after all, Athalie."

"Yes.... It happened accidentally." And she told him about the old

gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely

penniless and at bay before the world.

After she had ended he asked her whether she had ever again seen his

father. She told him. She told him also about seeing his mother.