Gloria’s independence, like all sincere and
profound qualities, had begun unconsciously, but,
once brought to her attention by Anthony’s fascinated
discovery of it, it assumed more nearly the proportions
of a formal code. From her conversation it might
be assumed that all her energy and vitality went into
a violent affirmation of the negative principle “Never
give a damn.”
“Not for anything or anybody,” she said,
“except myself and, by implication, for Anthony.
That’s the rule of all life and if it weren’t
I’d be that way anyhow. Nobody’d do
anything for me if it didn’t gratify them to,
and I’d do as little for them.”
She was on the front porch of the nicest lady in Marietta
when she said this, and as she finished she gave a
curious little cry and sank in a dead faint to the
porch floor.
The lady brought her to and drove her home in her
car. It had occurred to the estimable Gloria
that she was probably with child.
She lay upon the long lounge down-stairs. Day
was slipping warmly out the window, touching the late
roses on the porch pillars.
“All I think of ever is that I love you,”
she wailed. “I value my body because you
think it’s beautiful. And this body of mine—of
yours—to have it grow ugly and shapeless?
It’s simply intolerable. Oh, Anthony, I’m
not afraid of the pain.”
He consoled her desperately—but in vain.
She continued:
“And then afterward I might have wide hips and
be pale, with all my freshness gone and no radiance
in my hair.”
He paced the floor with his hands in his pockets,
asking:
“Is it certain?”
“I don’t know anything. I’ve
always hated obstrics, or whatever you call them.
I thought I’d have a child some time. But
not now.”
“Well, for God’s sake don’t lie
there and go to pieces.”
Her sobs lapsed. She drew down a merciful silence
from the twilight which filled the room. “Turn
on the lights,” she pleaded. “These
days seem so short—June seemed—to—have—longer
days when I was a little girl.”
The lights snapped on and it was as though blue drapes
of softest silk had been dropped behind the windows
and the door. Her pallor, her immobility, without
grief now, or joy, awoke his sympathy.
“Do you want me to have it?” she asked
listlessly.
“I’m indifferent. That is, I’m
neutral. If you have it I’ll probably be
glad. If you don’t—well, that’s
all right too.”
“I wish you’d make up your mind one way
or the other!”
“Suppose you make up your mind.”
She looked at him contemptuously, scorning to answer.
“You’d think you’d been singled
out of all the women in the world for this crowning
indignity.”
“What if I do!” she cried angrily.
“It isn’t an indignity for them. It’s
their one excuse for living. It’s the one
thing they’re good for. It is an
indignity for me.
