be better than this."

CHAPTER XI

THE PLUNGE

Stella went over that queer debate a good many times in the ten days
that followed. It revealed Jack Fyfe to her in a new, inexplicable
light, at odd variance with her former conception of the man. She could
not have visualized him standing with one foot on the stove front
speaking calmly of love and marriage if she had not seen him with her
own eyes, heard him with somewhat incredulous ears. She had continued to
endow him with the attributes of unrestrained passion, of headlong
leaping to the goal of his desires, of brushing aside obstacles and
opposition with sheer brute force; and he had shown unreckoned qualities
of restraint, of understanding. She was not quite sure if this were
guile or sensible consideration. He had put his case logically,
persuasively even. She was very sure that if he had adopted emotional
methods, she would have been repelled. If he had laid siege to her hand
and heart in the orthodox fashion, she would have raised that siege in
short order. As it stood, in spite of her words to him, there was in her
own mind a lack of finality. As she went about her daily tasks, that
prospect of trying a fresh fling at the world as Jack Fyfe's wife
tantalized her with certain desirable features.

Was it worth while to play the game as she must play it for some time
to come, drudge away at mean, sordid work and amid the dreariest sort of
environment? At best, she could only get away from Charlie's camp and
begin along new lines that might perhaps be little better, that must
inevitably lie among strangers in a strange land. To what end? What did
she want of life, anyway? She had to admit that she could not say fully
and explicitly what she wanted. When she left out her material wants,
there was nothing but a nebulous craving for--what? Love, she assumed.
And she could not define love, except as some incomprehensible transport
of emotion which irresistibly drew a man and a woman together, a divine
fire kindled in two hearts. It was not a thing she could vouch for by
personal experience. It might never touch and warm her, that divine
fire. Instinct did now and then warn her that some time it would wrap
her like a flame. But in the meantime--Life had her in midstream of its
remorseless, drab current, sweeping her along. A foothold offered. Half
a loaf, a single slice of bread even, is better than none.

Jack Fyfe did not happen in again for nearly two we