earer to her.

"I respect you--yes," he said. "But that is not all. I have another
feeling for you. I have had it ever since I first saw you that night,
when I was standing by the door in the Cafe Royal and you looked at me."

"But--but you--"

"Yes?"

Her lips trembled. Again jealousy seized her.

"I saw you that night in Conduit Street," she said. "You thought I
didn't, but I did."

He still looked perfectly calm and untroubled.

"You were dining with Dick Garstin. May I not dine with someone?"

"Then why did you leave the restaurant?"

"I did not want you to see me."

"Ah!"

"I thought you might not understand."

"I do understand. I understand perfectly!"

She drew her hand sharply away from his.

"Are you angry with me?"

"Angry? No! What does it matter to me?"

"I am a man. I live alone. My life is lonely. Must I give up everything
before I know that some day I shall have the only thing I really wish?
You know men. You know how we are. I do not defend. I only say that I
am not better than the other men. I want to be happy. If that is not for
me, then I want to make the time pass. I do not pretend. Men generally
pretend very much to beautiful girls. But you would not believe such
nonsense."

"Then why didn't you stay in the restaurant?"

"Because I thought to do that would be like an insult for you. Such
girls as that--mud--they must not come into your life even by chance,
even for a few minutes. No man wishes to show himself with mud to a lady
he respects. I tell you just the truth."

"Have you--have you seen her again?"

"She is in Paris. She has been in Paris for many days. But she is
nothing. Why speak of such people?"

"I don't know. But I hate--"

She moved restlessly. Then she got up and went to the fire. He followed
her. She could not understand her own jealousy. It humiliated her as
she had never been humiliated before. She felt jealous of this man's
absolute freedom, of his past. A sort of rage possessed her when she
thought of all the experiences he must certainly have had. She almost
hated him for those experiences. She wished she could lay hands on them,
tear them out of him, so that he should not have them any longer
in memory's treasury. And yet she knew that, without them, he would
probably attract her much less.

"Do you care then?" he said.

"Care?"

"Do you care what I do?"

"No, of course not!"

"But--you do care!" he said.

He said it without any triumph o