WHITEWASH
bad lot, for all her yellow hair and baby eyes. She's rotten to the core—it's inherited, it's natural, and it's cultivated. I know her! Have the courage to break your engagement—don't be a fool, and let her make you believe you're tied. You've got to do the square thing—not the soft thing, mind you, but the square thing—by yourself, first, and before all. Good-bye, good-bye!"
Once more Morton found himself in the elevator, being dropped down-stairs at a sickening pace, and presently he was out in the street again.
"If you don't mind, Mrs. Durham," he heard himself saying, "I'll put you into a cab. I need exercise and I want to think, so I'd better walk up."
"Of course," she said, cheerily. "Don't mind me in the least. Just put me aboard a hansom." She looked up at him with such a light of sweetness in her face that in spite of his former antagonism his heart warmed toward her.
She held out her hand. "You'll believe me, won't you? It's only out of my love for Victoria that I'm pushing this thing so far. I don't usually make it my business to hound any woman down.
257
