All this, of course, was just romantic nonsense. She was the victim of a tragic doom indeed, but she herself had fashioned it. With her the fault, as with dear Brutus, lay not in her stars, but in herself. For, having been endowed with so many rare and precious things that most men lack—wealth, beauty, charm, intelligence, and vital energy—she lacked the will, the toughness, to resist. So, having almost all, but lacking this, she was the slave to her advantages. Her wealth had set a premium on every whim, and no one had ever taught her to say no.
In this she was the child of her own time. Her life expressed itself in terms of speed, sensational change, and violent movement, in a feverish tempo that never drew from its own energies exhaustion or surcease, but mounted constantly to insane excess. She had been everywhere and “seen everything”—in the way one might see things from the windows of an express train travelling eighty miles an hour. And, having quickly exhausted the conventional kaleidoscope of things to be seen, she had long since turned to an investigation of things more bizarre and sinister and hidden. Here, too, her wealth and powerful connections opened doors to her which were closed to other people.
So, now, she possessed an intimate and extensive acquaintance among the most sophisticated and decadent groups in “Society”, in all the great cities of the world. And her cult of the unusual had led to an exploration of the most shadowy border lines of life. She had an acquaintanceship among the underworld of New York, London, Paris, and Berlin which the police might have envied. And even with the police her wealth had secured for her dangerous privileges. In some way, known only to persons who control great power, financial or political, she had obtained a police card and was privileged to a reckless licence in the operation of her low-slung racing car. Although she was near-sighted, she drove it at murderous speed through the seething highways of Manhattan, and as it flashed by she always got the courtesy of a police salute. All this in spite of the fact that she had demolished one car and killed a young man who had been driving with her, and in spite of the further fact that the police knew her as one who had been present at a drinking party at which one of the chieftains of the underworld had been slain.
It seemed, therefore, that her wealth and power and feverish energy could get her anything she wanted in any country of the world. People had once said: “What on earth is Amy going to do next!” But now they said: “What on earth is there left for her to do?” If life is to be expressed solely in terms of velocity and sensation, it seemed there was nothing left for her to do. Nothing but more speed, more change, more violence, more sensation—until the end. And the end? The end could only be destruction, and the mark of destruction was already apparent upon her. It was written in her eyes—in her tormented, splintered, and exploded vision. She had tried everything in life—except living. And she could never try that now because she had so long ago, and so irrevocably, lost the way. So there was nothing left for her to do except to die.
“If only”—people would think regretfully, as Mrs. Jack now thought as she looked at that elfin head—“oh, if only things had turned out differently for her!”—and then would seek back desperately through the labyrinthine scheme to find the clue to her disorder, saying: “Here—or here—or here—it happened here, you see!—If Only—!”
If only men were so much clay, as they are blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling! If they only were!
“I mean!...You know!...” With these words, so indicative of her undefined enthusiasm and inchoate thought, Amy jerked the cigarette away from her lips, laughed hoarsely and eagerly, and turned to her companions as if fairly burning with a desire to communicate to them something that filled her with exuberant elation. “I mean!” she cried again—“when you compare it with the stuff they’re doing nowadays!—I mean!—there’s simply no comparison!” Laughing jubilantly, as if the thought behind these splintered phrases must be perfectly clear to everyone, she drew furiously upon her cigarette again and jerked it from her lips.