# Kept Woman/Chapter 21

"Hubert, this is too much. When you try to rob me it is just a little more than I can bear without speaking up. You have no way of returning five thousand dollars to me and in your heart you know that you haven't. Haven't you any scruples at all? You would walk out of here with five thousand dollars of my money and be utterly untroubled by the thought that you'd never be able to return it. That's robbery, Hubert. Of course you say that you'll return it, but you know perfectly well that the chances are very slim. That is, you know it if you ever face facts with yourself for a single minute.
"I can't imagine, of course, the processes of your mind. You got fifteen thousand dollars for your business. That was the most money you ever saw in your life. You sold what it had taken you twelve years to build, and being dazzled by the amount, spent it in a year's time and expected to pick money off the pavements after that. People tell me things, you see, and because I know you so well I'm able to make quite a story out of what they tell me.
"I had thought, of course, that I was being fairly decent to you. I let you come and go as you liked because I considered you as a poor, dumb animal who had a certain meaningless attachment for this house and for the boy you helped to create.
​"You haven't contributed five cents to the running of this house or to the support of Hubert since you retired. I never asked for it.
"You came here and insulted my intelligence time after time. The lies you told me were absurd, but I let you go along without arguments because I pitied you a mind that would conceive them.
"You've never considered me for a single instant. You bought a Nash roadster for your red-haired mistress on time and gave this address because you weren't using your own name in Inwood. Then you let the payments lapse once, though you had money then, and they phoned here about it.
"Oh, yes, I've known there was a woman since then. Isn't her name Cory? I supposed it was, because you were calling yourself by that name. Yes, I found that out. That was another sweet moment. Nellie told me. Fancy how I felt when she told me that the boy she goes dancing with saw you at all hours of the day and night with a plump, red-haired girl. He was washing cars in the garage you used in Inwood and heard people call you Mr. Cory. I guess you didn't place him when you saw him there, but he placed you.
"Outside of these humiliations I didn't mind at all. Not because I'm broad-minded or generous but because you haven't meant anything to me for more years than I can remember. I let you have, with complete peace, the woman, freedom, and my Packard. However, you're not going to rob me.
"I suppose I could have told you a long while ago to stop all the fiction about Steve Flynn and your mythi​cal job. I thought, though, that it would be kind of cruel to let you know that I knew. It would have taken all the wind out of your sails, I'm sure. You must have felt like a very gay devil of a fellow deceiving your wife. I suppose you and the lady involved took every precaution of which your joint mentality thought. You probably grew delightfully frightened every time the bell rang lest it be me with a detective. I thought it all over but couldn't deprive you of that.
"As I say, Hubert, I had thought I was being perfectly decent to you. I even felt sorry for you when I saw you getting shabby-looking and noticed that you had to change and garage the car without service. Then, too, Jack—that's the young negro again—reported to Nellie that the Nash was gone, and I understood thoroughly. Please believe that I did not pump Jack or Nellie for information. I'm not above that sort of thing, but I wasn't interested. I thought of giving you a little money, but I changed my mind. What was the use? It would only mean one more idiotic action on your part or two or three—depending on how much I gave you. I decided not to offer you a penny. It never occurred to me that you would try to borrow from me. Good heavens, Hubert, the more I think of it the more fantastic it seems. You who never so much as bought a loaf of bread or a can of soup for the house when you had fifteen thousand dollars. And to think of giving me guff about a five-thousand-dollar investment. Why, you wouldn't even know how to invest it if you had the money. But of course you didn't intend to. You just wanted to ride high for a while with Miss Cory again ​and I could do without my five thousand. That's colossal nerve, Hubert.
"I dare say Miss Cory isn't a bad sort. I hold nothing against her, but she isn't going to have her roadster replaced on my money. I refuse to be robbed. I suppose I'm mean and unreasonable, but I don't like to lend five thousand dollars with absolutely no chance of its ever coming back.
"Now, I want to tell you something else, Hubert. What you tried to do today closes the long, tedious, senseless incident that was our life more or less together. You are no longer free to come to this house. I never want to see you again because I am no longer sorry for you, and that means that my last cordial feeling toward you is gone. If you have anything upstairs, please get it. I want no loose ends trailing about. This must be the finish. Don't invent a yearning to see your son as an excuse to return, Hubert. You know where he works, if the desire to see him overpowers you. I suppose it isn't necessary to add that you'll leave the Packard at the curb when you go. And please go soon, before this morning is spoiled. I shall always remember it and cherish it as an occasion upon which I exercised tremendous self-control. If I had chosen I could have been nasty."