A Prologue To Love by Taylor Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

where there is carrion’.”
     
    He laughed. “Complimentary! A profit is a profit. I dabble in anything profitable. I have a dozen investments and businesses.”
     
    “Some legitimate, no doubt,” said Cynthia.
     
    “True.”
     
    Cynthia said nothing. He waited, but still she did not speak. Then he said, “Why didn’t you buy that land and properties in Virginia, as I advised you to? They could have been had for almost nothing; they were sold at a handsome profit just before I left for Europe.”
     
    “You bought and sold them yourself?” asked Cynthia quietly.
     
    “I did. But I gave you the first opportunity.”
     
    “You don’t understand, John. I couldn’t have done it. The poor South!”
     
    “Your ‘poor South’ killed your husband in Georgia,” he said with contempt. “Your husband, George Winslow.”
     
    “It was stupid of him to apply for a commission and go to war,” said Cynthia, and her lovely eyes flashed. “I tried to dissuade him. But it was all bugles and drums and brass buttons and patriotism! Why didn’t Congress do as Lincoln first suggested: pay the southern plantation people for their slaves, then free them? Think of the tens of thousands of lives that would have been saved, and the money, and the calamity, and the ruin and destruction! Think of the sorrow that would have been spared, and the bitterness, and the crimes of the Reconstruction, and the undying enmity and hate, and the burned cities, and the widows and the orphaned children!”
     
    John Ames did not speak. Cynthia’s eyes were full upon him. “You made a lot of money out of that war, didn’t you?”
     
    “I did.”
     
    “You never applied for a commission yourself, John.”
     
    “No. I was not a fool like your husband.”
     
    She put down her glass. “Let us talk of something else,” she said in a strained voice. “But first I wish to say this: I was offered a good pension by the government. I refused it. To me it was blood money.”
     
    “A silly gesture.”
     
    “The world, thank God, is full of what you call ‘silly gestures’, John.”
     
    “And it can’t afford them. It is just an expensive pose.”
     
    “I can’t afford expensive poses, John, either. I have exactly $23,598.13 left; I received my banker’s statement this morning. Aren’t you stunned?”
     
    He was. Cynthia, like Ann, had inherited two hundred thousand dollars from her father, wisely invested so that even the War between the States had not depreciated it too radically. After the war her stock had risen in the general prosperity which always seemed to come like a fat beast after all wars, surfeited with dead flesh and blood and dead hearts. Her husband, George Winslow, had been a solid member of a solid law firm, and a Bostonian of a most impeccable if not wealthy family. He had probably left Cynthia at least fifty thousand dollars.
     
    “How did you spend all that money?” exclaimed John Ames, completely aghast. He stared at her as though she were a murderess.
     
    “I spent it — living. Something you would not understand,” she answered. She waved her hand about the room. “I buy precious things; I adorn life. I have four servants, and I pay them well. I spend a fortune on my clothing and jewels. I give expensive parties. I travel. Do you see that carafe, for instance? I paid two hundred dollars for it. I have fine pictures, originals. I go to New York and have a suite in the best hotels and enjoy the opera and invite friends to dine with me. I adore champagne, and champagne is expensive. Do you know what this dress cost me? It is actually silver thread and was made in France. My wardrobe is full of such dresses, and sables. My perfume, of which I use considerable, costs fifty dollars a vial.” She was becoming excited; she looked at him as if she hated him. “I imported an Italian bedroom set, seventeenth-century, and it cost three thousand dollars, not to mention the charges for shipping, which were