"Why do you say HIM?" she queried, in a shudder of curiosity.
"Well, Gulden haunts me."
"He does me, too. He makes me lose my sense of proportion. Beside
him you and the others seem good. But you ARE wicked."
"Then you won't marry me and go away somewhere? ... Your choice is
strange. Because I tell you the truth."
"Kells! I'm a woman. Something deep in me says you won't keep me
here--you can't be so base. Not now, after I saved your life! It
would be horrible--inhuman. I can't believe any man born of a woman
could do it."
"But I want you--I love you!" he said, low and hard.
"Love! That's not love," she replied in scorn. "God only knows what
it is."
"Call it what you like," he went on, bitterly. "You're a young,
beautiful, sweet woman. It's wonderful to be near you. My life has
been hell. I've had nothing. There's only hell to look forward to--
and hell at the end. Why shouldn't I keep you here?"
"But, Kells, listen," she whispered, earnestly, "suppose I am young
and beautiful and sweet--as you said. I'm utterly in your power. I'm
compelled to seek your protection from even worse men. You're
different from these others. You're educated. You must have had--a--
a good mother. Now you're bitter, desperate, terrible. You hate
life. You seem to think this charm you see in me will bring you
something. Maybe a glimpse of joy! But how can it? You know better.
How can it ... unless I--I love you?"
Kells stared at her, the evil and hardness of his passion corded in
his face. And the shadows of comprehending thought in his strange
eyes showed the other side of the man. He was still staring at her
while he reached to put aside the curtains; then he dropped his head
and went out.
Joan sat motionless, watching the door where he had disappeared,
listening to the mounting beats of her heart. She had only been
frank and earnest with Kells. But he had taken a meaning from her
last few words that she had not intended to convey. All that was
woman in her--mounting, righting, hating--leaped to the power she
sensed in herself. If she could be deceitful, cunning, shameless in
holding out to Kells a possible return of his love, she could do
anything with him. She knew it. She did not need to marry him or
sacrifice herself. Joan was amazed that the idea remained an instant
before her consciousness. But something had told her this was
another kind of life than she had known, and all that was precious
to her hung in the balance. Any falsity was justifiable, even
righteous, under the circumstances. Could she formulate a plan that
this keen bandit would not see through? The remotest possibility of
her even caring for Kells--that was as much as she dared hint. But
that, together with all the charm and seductiveness she could
summon, might be enough. Dared she try it? If she tried and failed
Kells would despise her, and then she was utterly lost. She was
caught between doubt and hope. All that was natural and true in her
shrank from such unwomanly deception; all that had been born of her
wild experience inflamed her to play the game, to match Kells's
villainy with a woman's unfathomable duplicity.