r, your criticism is not desired."

Both voice and manner were so cold that they were equivalent to
dismissal, but Winston hesitated, already beginning to regret the
bitter harshness of his speech. Beneath his steady gaze her cheeks
flamed hotly.

"We have been friends," he began more humbly. "Would you mind telling
me something regarding your plans? Just now I feel unable to offer you
either aid or advice."

Her face perceptibly brightened, as if this new mood quickly appealed
to her.

"That sounds ever so much better," she admitted, glancing up into his
face. "I have never enjoyed being scolded, as though I were a child
who had done wrong. Besides, I am quite convinced in this case I have
done precisely right. I think you would admit it also if you only had
patience to hear my story. I know exactly what I intend doing, or I
should never have given all that money away. I have an engagement."

"An engagement? Where? Is there another troupe playing here?"

She shrugged her shoulders, her hands clasped.

"No, not in the sense you mean; not the legitimate. I am going to
appear at the Gayety."

Winston stood grasping the back of the chair, staring straight at her,
his body motionless. For an instant he was conscious of a sudden
revulsion of feeling, a vague distrust of her true character, a doubt
of the real nature of this perverse personality. Such a resolution on
her part shocked him with its recklessness. Either she did not in the
least appreciate what such action meant, or else she woefully lacked in
moral judgment. Slowly, those shadowed dark eyes were uplifted to his
face, as if his very silence had awakened alarm. Yet she merely smiled
at the gravity of his look, shaking her dark hair in coquettish disdain.

"Again you apparently disapprove," she said with pretence of
carelessness. "How easily I succeed in shocking you to-day! Really, a
stranger might imagine I was under particular obligations to ask your
permission for the mere privilege of living. We have known each other
by sight for all of two weeks, and yet your face already speaks of
dictation. Evidently you do not like the Gayety."

"No; do you?"

"I?" she replied doubtfully, with a slight movement of the body more
expressive than words. "There are times when necessity, rather than
taste, must control the choice. But truly, since you ask the question,
I do not like the Gayety. It is far too noisy, too dirty, too gaudy,
and