She laughed queerly--again shook
out her hair, and it shimmered round her face and over her head and out
from her shoulders like flames. "You've got a kind of a--Mr. Tetlow way
of talking. It doesn't remind me of you as you were in Jersey City."

She said nothing, she suggested nothing that had the least impropriety
in it, or faintest hint of impropriety. It was nothing positive, nothing
aggressive, but a certain vague negative something that gave him the
impression of innocence still innocent but looking or trying to look
tolerantly where it should not. And he felt dizzy and sick, stricken
with shame and remorse and jealous fear. Yes--she was sliding slowly,
gently, unconsciously down to the depth in which he had been lying, sick
and shuddering--no, to deeper depths--to the depths where there is no
light, no trace of a return path. And he had started her down. He had
done it when he, in his pride and selfishness, had ignored what the
success of his project would mean for her. But he knew now; in
bitterness and shame and degradation he had learned. "I was infamous!"
he said to himself.

She began to talk in a low, embarrassed voice:

"Sometimes I think of getting married. There's a young man--a young
lawyer--he makes twenty-five a week, but it'll be years and years before
he has a good living. A man doesn't get on fast in New York unless he
has pull."

Norman, roused from his remorse, blazed inside. "You are in love with
him?"

She laughed, and he could not tell whether it was to tease him or to
evade.

"You'd not care about him long," said Norman, "unless there were more
money coming in than he'd be likely to get soon. Love without money
doesn't go--at least, not in New York."

"Do you suppose I don't know that?" said she with the irritation of one
faced by a hateful fact. "Still--I don't see what to do."

Norman, biting his lip and fuming and observing her with jealous eyes,
said in the best voice he could command, "How long have you been in love
with him?"

"Did I say I was in love?" mocked she.

"You didn't say you weren't. Who is he?"

"If you'll stay on about half an hour or so, you'll see him. No--you
can't. I've got to get dressed before I let him up. He has very strict
ideas--where I'm concerned."

"Then why did you let _me_ come up?" Norman said, with a penetrating
glance.

She lowered her gaze and a faint flush stole into her cheeks. Was it
confession of the purpose he suspected? Or, was it