y, a woman
would have thought.

"What else is there for me to think? You certainly haven't shown any
consideration for me."

"But you told me yourself that you were false to me."

"Really? When?"

She forgot her fear in a gush of rage rising from sudden realization of
what she was doing--of how leniently and weakly and without pride she
was dealing with this man. "Didn't you admit----"

"Pardon me," said he, and his manner might well have calmed the wildest
tempest of anger. "I did not admit. I never admit. I leave that to
people of the sort who explain and excuse and apologize. I simply told
you I was paying the expenses of a family named Hallowell."

"But _why_ should you do it, Fred?"

His smile was gently satirical. "I thought Tetlow told you why."

"I don't believe him!"

"Then why this excitement?"

One could understand how the opposition witnesses dreaded facing him. "I
don't know just why," she stammered. "It seemed to me you were
admitting--I mean, you were confirming what that man accused you of."

"And of what did he accuse me? I might say, of what do _you_ accuse me?"
When she remained silent he went on: "I am trying to be reasonable,
Josephine. I am trying to keep my temper."

The look in her eyes--the fear, the timidity--was a startling revelation
of character--of the cowardice with which love undermines the strongest
nature. "I know I've been foolish and incoherent, Fred," she pleaded.
"But--I love you! And you remember how I always was afraid of that
girl."

"Just what do you wish to know?"

"Nothing, dear--nothing. I am not sillily jealous. I ought to be
admiring you for your generosity--your charity."

"It's neither the one nor the other," said he with exasperating
deliberateness.

She quivered. "Then _what_ is it?" she cried. "You are driving me crazy
with your evasions." Pleadingly, "You must admit they _are_ evasions."

He buttoned his coat in tranquil preparation to depart. She instantly
took alarm. "I don't mean that. It's my fault, not asking you straight
out. Fred, tell me--won't you? But if you are too cross with me,
then--don't tell me." She laughed nervously, hiding her submission
beneath a seeming of mocking exaggeration of humility. "I'll be good.
I'll behave."

A man who admired her as a figure, a man who liked her, a man who had no
feeling for her beyond the general human feeling of wishing well pretty
nearly everybody--in brief, any man but one who had loved her a