The Call of the Blood

Artois made a wry face.

"Eventually you paid a lot of money to prevent it from being published

any more. You withdrew it from circulation. I sometimes feel that we ugly

ones ought to be withdrawn from circulation. It's silly, perhaps, and I

hope I never show it, but there the feeling is. So when the handsomest

man I had ever seen loved me, I was simply amazed. It seemed to me

ridiculous and impossible. And then, when I was convinced it was

possible, very wonderful, and, I confess it to you, very splendid. It

seemed to help to reconcile me with myself in a way in which I had never

been reconciled before."

"And that was the beginning?"

"I dare say. There were other things, too. Maurice Delarey isn't at all

stupid, but he's not nearly so intelligent as I am."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"The fact of this physical perfection being humble with me, looking up to

me, seemed to mean a great deal. I think Maurice feels about intellect

rather as I do about beauty. He made me understand that he must. And that

seemed to open my heart to him in an extraordinary way. Can you

understand?"

"Yes. Give me some more tea, please."

He held out his cup. She filled it, talking while she did so. She had

become absorbed in what she was saying, and spoke without any

self-consciousness.

"I knew my gift, such as it is, the gift of brains, could do something

for him, though his gift of beauty could do nothing for me--in the way of

development. And that, too, seemed to lead me a step towards him.

Finally--well, one day I knew I wanted to marry him. And so, Emile, I'm

going to marry him. Here!"

She held out to him his cup full of tea.

"There's no sugar," he said.

"Oh--the first time I've forgotten."

"Yes."

The tone of his voice made her look up at him quickly and exclaim: "No, it won't make any difference!"

"But it has. You've forgotten for the first time. Cursed be the egotism

of man."

He sat down in an arm-chair on the other side of the tea-table.

"It ought to make a difference. Maurice Delarey, if he is a man--and if

you are going to marry him he must be--will not allow you to be the

Egeria of a fellow who has shocked even Paris by telling it the naked

truth."

"Yes, he will. I shall drop no friendship for him, and he knows it.

There is not one that is not honest and innocent. Thank God I can say

that. If you care for it, Emile, we can both add to the size of the

letter bundles."