"He's quite hopeless. He's incurable. It's a disease; but it works slowly on him, like leprosy."
"Do you think a drunkard is wholly to blame--for his malady!"
"Oh," said Georgia, "I'm not sure that anyone's ever to blame for anything. It just happens, that's all."
Mrs. Plew knocked and half opened the door. "That young man's back," she said, "shall I show him in?" Before Georgia could answer Stevens came into the room.
Without greeting of any kind, in rapid, mechanical words, as if he had learned his piece by heart, he explained his abrupt coming.
"I have received a business offer," he began, "which if I accept will take me away from America for a term of years. It is to superintend, on behalf of Mr. Silverman, the reorganization of certain life companies along modern American lines in South America. Headquarters, Rio de Janiero, Brazil. I have come for your advice, and your advice will govern. Shall I or shall I not accept the offer?" He stopped abruptly, looking at her with a harsh, almost savage expression, as he waited for her reply.
"You know what I mean," he burst out. "Answer me yes or no."
"You know Father Hervey, Mr. Stevens," she said coolly.
"I think I have heard of you before, Mr. Stevens," the priest bowed slightly.
"And I have heard of you," answered the young man bitterly. He turned to Georgia. "Answer me," he repeated, "yes or no."
"If it is an advantageous offer from a business point of view," she said gently, "I think you should go, Mason."
"That settles it," said he between his teeth. "You'd made it plain enough with your silence. I said I'd come when you sent for me. I waited and waited, but you never sent. Every single day I've looked in the mail hoping, and the only thing I got from you was--money. And when I found that Connor had left you, had been gone a year, I had a little hope again that--Oh, Georgia," he exclaimed in his wretchedness, "you did care for me once. Why did you stop?"
"I haven't stopped, Mason, but--" she motioned toward the priest in his black and solemn garments, standing beside them like a stern guardian, "but--" she said, and her shoulders seemed to droop forward irresolutely, "I'm helpless."
Stevens took a step toward Father Hervey and there was almost a threat in his gesture. "Don't you see," he said, his two fists clenched, "that if someone in the barroom had cracked Jim Connor over the head with a whiskey bottle during his last spree or if DTs had hit him five per cent harder afterwards--I could have her with your blessing--and we'd be happy--oh, so happy as we'd be, Georgia! It isn't as if I wanted to break up a home. The home's broken up already. Don't you see? And you're telling her she can't move out of the wreck. She's got to sit in the rubbish as long as the man who made it is able to make more."