ou. Wiser beyond words." She turned her eyes to me and
they shone with tears.

"I wouldn't have you say anything--but what you're saying," she said.
"But it's nonsense, dear. You know it's nonsense as you say it."

I tried to keep up the heroic note, but she would not listen to it.

"It's no good," she cried almost petulantly. "This little world has made
us what we are. Don't you see--don't you see what I am? I can make love.
I can make love and be loved, prettily. Dear, don't blame me. I have
given you all I have. If I had anything more--I have gone through it
all over and over again--thought it out. This morning my head aches, my
eyes ache.

"The light has gone out of me and I am a sick and tired woman. But I'm
talking wisdom--bitter wisdom. I couldn't be any sort of helper to you,
any sort of wife, any sort of mother. I'm spoilt.

"I'm spoilt by this rich idle way of living, until every habit is wrong,
every taste wrong. The world is wrong. People can be ruined by wealth
just as much as by poverty. Do you think I wouldn't face life with you
if I could, if I wasn't absolutely certain I should be down and dragging
in the first half-mile of the journey? Here I am--damned! Damned! But
I won't damn you. You know what I am! You know. You are too clear and
simple not to know the truth. You try to romance and hector, but you
know the truth. I am a little cad--sold and done. I'm--. My dear, you
think I've been misbehaving, but all these days I've been on my best
behaviour.... You don't understand, because you're a man.

"A woman, when she's spoilt, is SPOILT. She's dirty in grain. She's
done."

She walked on weeping.

"You're a fool to want me," she said. "You're a fool to want me--for
my sake just as much as yours. We've done all we can. It's just
romancing--"

She dashed the tears from her eyes and turned upon me. "Don't you
understand?" she challenged. "Don't you know?"

We faced one another in silence for a moment.

"Yes," I said, "I know."

For a long time we spoke never a word, but walked on together, slowly
and sorrowfully, reluctant to turn about towards our parting. When at
last we did, she broke silence again.

"I've had you," she said.

"Heaven and hell," I said, "can't alter that."

"I've wanted--" she went on. "I've talked to you in the nights and made
up speeches. Now when I want to make them I'm tongue-tied. But to me
it's just as if the moments we have had lasted for ever. Moods and
states