The Last Woman

"Go on, Roderick. Finish all you have to say, before I begin. What next?"

"Why--oh, what's the use? There isn't any more to say. Morton probably asked her to go away with him, and she went. That's all. I thought you ought to know it."

"You don't know it yourself, do you?"

"No--not positively, of course."

"You have just guessed it."

"I suppose that's true, too."

"I wonder if your guessing has gone far enough to enlighten me on two important points."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd like to know why Morton would want her to run away with him at all, and why she should think of consenting to such a thing, if he did. Patricia isn't one of the run-away kind. I should think you would know that. And they didn't have to run."

"Why, Morton had just been virtually kicked out of Jack Gardner's house. He was--"

"Well? Well? Couldn't Stephen Langdon's daughter kick him into it again? Or into any other house on God's green earth, for that matter, if she tried to do so? Do you suppose he'd have to pay any attention to a little, petty ostracism, on the part of such puppets of society as gathered out there, if he became the husband of Patricia Langdon? Don't be an ass, Roderick! You are just plain jealous, and I don't know that I blame you--for that."

"I'm not jealous."

"Then, you're a fool, and that's a heap worse."