Chapter 29 - Page 2

"Lord, no!"

Miss Demorest's gaze remained bent upon Pope, but it was focused upon great distances; her voice when she spoke was hushed and awe- stricken. "Neither did I until this one. I held it! I held it in my arms. Oh--I was frightened, and yet I seemed to know just what to do and--and everything. It was strange. It hurt me terribly, for, you see, I didn't know what babies meant until to-night. Now I know."

Pope saw the shining eyes suddenly fill and threaten to overflow; instead of the grotesquely overdressed and artificial stage favorite he beheld only a yearning woman whose face was softened and glorified as by a vision.

"Poor Lorelei!" he murmured, at a loss for words.

"Poor Lorelei?" Adoree's lips twisted mirthlessly. "Of course you don't understand. How could you? Why, it's her baby. 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. "I didn't know what I was doing when I agreed to be 'Adoree Demorest.'"

Pope's habitual restraint all at once gave way. "Nonsense!" he exploded. "The thing that counts is what you are, not what you seem to be. I know the truth; I don't give a damn what people say."

Now there was nothing sufficiently significant about these words to bring a light of wonderment and gladness to the girl's face, but her tears ceased as abruptly as they had commenced, and, noting the slowly growing radiance of her expression, Campbell was stricken dumb with fright at the possible consequences of temerity. The knowledge of his shortcomings robbed him of confidence and helped to confuse him.

Adoree rose, she removed her tango cap and the mantle elaborately draped from one shoulder that served as an evening wrap, then with a lingering backward glance she