but at night -- satin gowns with trains and bare
shoulders."

He endeavored to picture himself in such a city,
amid such a life, with Meta Beggs. He felt that she
would be entirely in place in the little carriages,
drinking champagne. "That's where they eat
frogs," he remarked inanely. In the tensity of her
feeling, the bitterness of her longing, her envy, she
cursed him for a dull fool. Then, recovering her
composure with a struggle:

"I would make a man drunk with pleasure in a
place like that. He would be proud of me, and all
the other men would hate him; they would all want
me."

"Some would come pretty near getting you, too,"
he replied with a flash of penetration; "those with
the fastest horses or longest pockets."

"I would be true to whoever took me there," she
declared; "out of gratitude."

He drew a deep breath. "What would you say,"
he inquired, leaning toward her, "to a trip to --
to Richmond? We could be gone the best part of a
week."

She laughed scornfully. "Do you think I am as
cheap as that -- to be bought over Sunday?" She
rose, and stood before him, sharply outlined against
the foliage, the water, the momentary, flittering insects,
taunting, provocative, sensual.

[[208]]

p207 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p208w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p209

v?