She laughed, careless of his grasp.

"Why should I be? You couldn't kill me if you tried--and if you could--"

"If I could--ah, if I could!" he muttered, fiercely.

"Why then there would be another murderer added to the general world of murderers!" she said--"That's all! It's not worth it!"

Still he held her in his grip.

"See here!" he said--"Before you go I want yon to know a thing or two,--you may as well learn once for all my views on women. They're brief, but they're fixed. And they're straight! Women are nothing--just necessary for the continuation of the race--no more. They may be beautiful or homely--it's all one--they serve the same purpose. I'm under no delusions about them. Without men they are utterly useless,--mere waste on the wind! To idealise them is a stupid mistake. To think that they can do anything original, intellectual or imaginative is to set one's self down an idiot. YOU,--you the spoilt only child of one of the biggest rascal financiers in New York,--YOU, left alone in the world with a fortune so vast as to be almost criminal--you think you are something superlative in the way of women,--you play the Cleopatra,--you are convinced you can draw men after you--but it's your money that draws them,--not YOU! Can't you see that?--or are you too vain to see it? And you've no mercy on them,--you make them believe you care for them and then you throw them over like empty nutshells! That's your way! But you never fooled ME,--and you never will!"

He released her as suddenly as he had grasped her,--she drew her white draperies round her shoulders with a statuesque grace, and lifted her head, smiling.

"Empty nutshells are a very good description of men who come after a woman for her money"--she observed, placidly--"and it's quite natural that the woman should throw them over her shoulder. There's nothing in them--not even a flavour! No--never fooled you,--you fooled yourself--you are fooling yourself now, only you don't know it. But there!--let's finish talking! I like the romance of the situation--you in your shirt-sleeves on a hill in California, and I in silken stuff and diamonds paying you a moonlight visit--it's really quite novel and charming!--but it can't go on for ever! Just now you said you wanted me to know a thing or two, and I presume you have explained yourself. What you think or what you don't think about women doesn't interest me. I'm one of the 'wastes on the wind!' I shall not aid in the continuation of the race,--heaven forbid! The race is too stupid and too miserable to merit continuance. Everything has been done for it that can be done, over and over again, from the beginning--till now,--and now--NOW!" She paused, and despite himself the tone of her voice sent a thrill through his blood of something like fear.




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