Most of it
demagoguing, of course, but more or less hysterical campaigning.
The only nasty article about me--a downright personal attack on
my sincerity-- was signed `S. G.' ''
``Oh--to be sure,'' said Jane, with smiling insincerity. ``I had
almost forgotten what you told me. Well, it's easy enough to
bribe her to silence. Go offer yourself to her.''
A long silence, then Davy said: ``I don't believe she'd accept
me.''
``Try it,'' said Jane.
Again a long pause. David said sullenly: ``I did.''
Selma Gordon had refused David Hull! Half a dozen explanations
of this astounding occurrence rapidly suggested themselves. Jane
rejected each in turn at a glance. ``You're sure she understood
you?''
``I made myself as clear as I did when I proposed to you,''
replied Davy with a lack of tact which a woman of Jane's kind
would never forget or forgive.
Jane winced, ignored. Said she: ``You must have insisted on
some conditions she hesitated to accept.''
``On her own terms,'' said Davy.
Jane gave up trying to get the real reason from him, sought it in
Selma's own words and actions. She inquired: ``What did she
say? What reason did she give?''
``That she owed it to the cause of her class not to marry a man
of my class,'' answered Hull, believing that he was giving the
exact and the only reason she assigned or had.
Jane gave a faint smile of disdain. ``Women don't act from a
sense of duty,'' she said.
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