She's a
mother. I can hold it once in a while; she can hold it always."
"I didn't know you cared for children--"
Adoree shrugged; the beads at her throat clicked barbarously.
"Neither did I, but I suppose every woman does if she only knew
it. To-night I began to understand what this ache inside of me
means." Her gaze came back and centered upon his face, but it was
frightened and panic-stricken now. "I've sacrificed my right to
children."
"How can you say--"
"Oh, you know it as well as I do!" A flush wavered in the
speaker's cheeks, then fled, leaving her white and weary. "You, of
all men, must understand. I'm notorious. I'm a painted woman, a
wicked woman--the wickedest woman in the land--and that reputation
will live in spite of anything I can do." She began to cry now in
a way strange to Pope's experience, for her tears appeared, grew,
and spilled themselves slowly down her cheeks, and she made no
attempt to hide them. The sight depressed him dreadfully, for at
heart he was intensely sentimental. "I didn't know what it means
to be notorious," she stated, tensely.
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