"
"A temporary tumult," Fyfe mused. "Have you thoroughly chucked that
illusion? I knew you would, of course, but I had no idea how long it
would take you."
"Long ago," she answered. "Even before I left you, I was shaky about
that. There were things I couldn't reconcile. But pride wouldn't let me
admit it. I can't even explain it to myself."
"I can," he said, a little sadly. "You've never poured out that big,
warm heart of yours on a man. It's there, always has been there, those
concentrated essences of passion. Every unattached man's a possible
factor, a potential lover. Nature has her own devices to gain her end. I
couldn't be the one. We started wrong. I saw the mistake of that when it
was too late. Monohan, a highly magnetic animal, came along at a time
when you were peculiarly and rather blindly receptive. That's all.
Sex--you have it in a word. It couldn't stand any stress, that sort of
attraction. I knew it would only last until you got one illuminating
glimpse of the real man of him. But I don't want to talk about him.
He'll keep. Sometime you'll really love a _man_, Stella, and he'll be a
very lucky mortal. There's an erratic streak in you, lady, but there's a
bigger streak that's fine and good and true. You'd have gone through
with it to the bitter end, if Jack Junior hadn't died. The weaklings
don't do that. Neither do they cut loose as you did, burning all their
economic bridges behind them. Do you know that it was over a month
before I found out that you'd turned your private balance back into my
account? I suppose there was a keen personal satisfaction in going on
your own and making good from the start.
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