Part 21 (1/2)
”It is useless,” said Glory. ”Polly will refuse to go. She expects Lord Robert to come for her, and she wants me to call on Mr. Drake.”
”But I have seen the man myself.”
”Lord Robert?”
”Yes. He will do nothing.”
”Nothing!”
”Nothing, or worse than nothing.”
”Impossible!”
”Nothing of that kind is impossible to men like those.”
”They are not so bad as that though, and even if Lord Robert is all you say, Mr. Drake----”
”They are friends and housemates, Glory, and what the one is the other must be also.”
”Oh, no. Mr. Drake is quite a different person.”
”Don't be misled, my child. If there were any real difference between them----”
”But there is; and if a girl were in trouble or wanted help in anything----”
”He would drop her, Glory, like an old lottery ticket that has drawn a blank and is done for.”
She was biting her lip, and it was bleeding slightly.
”You dislike Mr. Drake,” she said, ”and that is why you can not be just to him. But he is always praising and excusing you, and when any one----”
”His praises and excuses are nothing to me. I am not thinking of myself.
I am thinking----”
He had a look of intense excitement, and his speaking was abrupt and disconnected.
”You were splendid this morning, Glory, and when I think of the girl who defied that Pharisee, being perhaps herself the victim--The man asked me what my standing was, as if that--But if I had really had a right, if the girl had been anything to me, if she had been somebody else and not a light, shallow, worthless creature, do you know what I should have said to him? 'Since things have gone so far, sir, you must marry the girl now, and keep to her and be faithful to her, and love her, or else I----”
”You are flushed and excited, and there is something I do not understand----”
”Promise me, Glory, that you will break off this bad connection.”
”You are unreasonable. I can not promise.”
”Promise that you will never see these men again.”
”But I must see Mr. Drake at once and arrange about Polly.”
”Don't mention the man's name again; it makes my blood boil to hear you speak it!”
”But this is tyranny; and you are worse than the canon; and I can not bear it.”