at her with his grave face; every word was cutting him like a
knife. "So you didn't tell the old folks at Glenfaba about the hospital
until later?"

"No. Have a cup of the 'girl'? They call champagne 'the boy' at 'the
back,' so I call tea 'the girl,' you know."

"And when did you tell them about the music hall?"

"Yesterday. 'Muffins?'" and as she held out the plate she waggled the
wrist of her other hand, and mimicked the cry of the muffin man.

"Not until yesterday?"

She began to excuse herself. What was the use of taking people by
surprise? And then good people were sometimes so easily shocked!
Education and upbringing, and prejudices and even blood----

"Glory," he said, "if you are ashamed of this life, believe me it is not
a right one."

"Ashamed? Why should I be ashamed? Everybody is saying how proud I should
be."

She spoke feverishly, and by a sudden impulse she plucked up the paper,
but as suddenly let it drop again, for, looking at his grave face, her
little fame seemed to shrivel up. "But give a dog a bad name you
know----You were there on Monday night. Did you see anything,
now--anything in the performance----"

"I saw the audience, Glory; that was enough for me. It is impossible for
a girl to live long in an atmosphere like that and be a good woman. Yes,
my child, impossible' God forbid that I should sit in judgment on any
man, still less on any woman!--but the women of the music hall, do they
remain good women? Poor souls, they are placed in a position so false
that it would require extraordinary virtue not to become false along with
it! And the whiter the soul that is dragged through that--that mire, the
more the defilement. The audiences at such places don't want the white
soul, they don't want the good woman, they want the woman who has tasted
of the tree of good and evil. You can see it in their faces, and hear it
in their laughter, and measure it in their applause. Oh, I'm only a
priest, but I've seen these places all the world over, and I know what
I'm saying, and I know it's true and you know it's true, Glory----"

Glory leaped up from the table and her eyes seemed to emit fire. "I know
it's hard and cruel and pitiless, and, since you were there on Monday and
saw how kind the audience was to _me_, it's personal and untrue as well."

But her voice broke and she sat down again and said in another tone:
"But, John, it's nearly a year, you know, since we saw each other last,
and isn't it