"It isn't the money," she said, coming still further into the room.
"What is it, then?" I asked coldly.
"You came to say you're sorry?
To express your sympathy?
Is this a condolence call?"
She was standing next to the bed now and looked down at me.
"You don't have to say things like that, Jonas," she said simply. "Even if he was your father, I was his wife.
Yes, I came to say I'm sorry."
But I wasn't satisfied with that.
"Sorry about what?" I flung at her.
"Sorry he didn't give you more than he did?
Sorry that you didn't marry me instead of him?" I laughed bitterly. "You didn't love him."
"No, I didn't love him," she said tightly. "But I respected him.
He was more a man than anyone I ever met."
I didn't speak.
Suddenly she was crying. She sat down on the edge of the bed and hid her face in her hands.
"Cut it out," I said roughly. "It's too late for tears."
She put her hands down and stared at me.
In the darkness, I could see the wet silver sparkle rolling down her cheeks.
"What do you know it's too late for?" she cried. "Too late to love him?
It isn't that I didn't try. It's just that I'm not capable of love.
I don't know why. It's the way I am, that's all.
Your father knew that and understood it.
That's why I married him.
Not for his money.
He knew that, too.
And he was content with what I gave him."
"If that's the truth," I said, "then what are you crying for?"
"Because I'm frightened," she said.
"Frightened?" I laughed. It just didn't fit her. "What are you afraid of?"
She took a cigarette from somewhere in her negligee and put it in her mouth unlit.
Her eyes shone at me like a panther's eyes must in a desert campfire at night.
"Men," she said shortly.
"Men?" I repeated. "You – afraid of men?
Why, you're the original teasing- "
"That's right, you stupid fool!" she said angrily. "I’m afraid of men, listening to their demands, putting up with their lecherous hands and one-track minds.
And hearing them disguise their desire with the words of love when all they want is just one thing. To get inside me!"
"You're crazy!" I said angrily.
"That's not the only thing we think of!"
"No?" she asked.
I heard the rasp of a match and the flame broke the darkness. She looked down at me. "Then look at yourself, Jonas.
Look at yourself lusting for your father's wife!"
I didn't have to look to know she was right.
I knocked the match angrily from her hand.
Then, all at once, she was clinging to me, her lips placing tiny kisses on my face and chin, her body trembling with her fears.
"Jonas, Jonas. Please let me stay with you.
Just for to-night," she cried.
"I’m afraid to be alone!"
I raised my hands to push her away.
She was naked beneath the black negligee.