irl's face; she
turned instinctively away from him and picked up her hat.
She put it on and buttoned her gloves without the faintest
knowledge of what she was doing; her senses were wholly
occupied with the comprehension of the collapse that had
taken place within her. It was the single moment of her
life when she differed, in any important way, from the
girl Kendal had painted. Her self-consciousness was a
wreck, she no longer controlled it; it tossed at the
mercy of her emotion. Her face was very white and painfully
empty, her eyes wandered uncertainly around the room,
unwilling above all things to meet Kendal's again. She
had forgotten about the portrait.

"I will go, then," she said simply, without looking at
him, and this time, with a flash, Kendal comprehended
again. He held the door open for her mutely, with the
keenest pang his pleasant life had ever brought him, and
she passed out and down the dingy stairs.

On the first landing she paused and turned. "I will never
be different," she said aloud, as if he were still beside
her, "I will never be different!" She unbuttoned one of
her gloves and fingered the curious silver ring that
gleamed uncertainly on her hand in the shabby light of
the staircase. The alternative within it, the alternative
like a bit of brown sugar, offered itself very suggestively
at the moment. She looked around her at the dingy place
she stood in, and in imagination threw herself across
the lowest step. Even at that miserable moment she was
aware of the strong, the artistic, the effective thing
to do. "And when he came down he might tread on me," she
said to herself, with a little shudder. "I wish I had
the courage. But no--it might hurt, after all. I am a
coward, too."

She had an overwhelming realization of impotence in every
direction. It came upon her like a burden; under it she
grew sick and faint. At the door she stumbled, and she
was hardly sure of her steps to her cab, which was drawn
up by the curbstone, and in which she presently went
blindly home.

By ten o'clock that night she had herself, in a manner,
in hand again. Her eyes were still wide and bitter, and
the baffled, uncomprehending look had not quite gone out
of them, but a line or two of cynical acceptance had
drawn themselves round her lips. She had sat so long and
so quietly regarding the situation that she became
conscious of the physical discomfort of stiffened limbs.
She leaned back in her chair and put her