ber how I warned you, last
December. I told you then that the secret of a woman's meal-ticket was
never hidden very long."

During this speech Mrs. Condor's voice had dropped from its original
tone of petty rancor to one of petulant self-justification. Stillman
knew at once that her ill-temper had caught her off-guard and she was
already trying to crawl slowly back into his favor. She had meant, no
doubt, to soften her news over a glass or two of chilled white wine
which she had counted on sipping during the noon hour. She might even
then have gone farther and decided to cast her fortunes with Stillman
and Claire if she had seen that her advantage lay in that direction. He
was not sure but that she still had some such notion in her mind. But he
felt suddenly sick of her past all hope of compromise, and he was
determined to be rid of her once and for all.

"No doubt," he said, frigidly, "you will be glad to be relieved of Miss
Robson's presence permanently. I take it that you don't consider her
association exactly ... well ... shall we say discreet?"

Her eyes took on a yellow tinge as she faced him. She must have sensed
the finality of his tone, the well-bred insolence that his query
suggested.

"Discreet?" she echoed. "Well, I wouldn't say that that was quite what I
meant. Desirable--that would be better. I don't find her association
desirable.... I don't _want_ her, in other words."

He had never been so angry in his life. Had she been a man he would have
struck her. He felt himself choking. "My dear Mrs. Condor," he warned,
"will you be good enough to take a little more respectful tone when you
speak of Miss Robson?"

"Oh, indeed! And just what are your rights in the matter? You're not her
brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know that it was
the fashion for a...." His look stopped her. She trembled a moment,
tossed back her head, and finished, defiantly, "Yes, that is what I want
to know, what _are_ your rights?"

He took a step toward her. Instinctively she retreated.

"A woman like you wouldn't understand even if I were to tell you," he
flung at her.

She covered her face with both hands.

He left the room.

He himself was trembling as he reached the street--trembling for the
first time in years. As a child he had been given to these fits of
emotional tremors, but he had long since lost the faculty for recording
physically his intense moments. Or had he lost the faculty for the
in