in the mind of either which of the young ladies the other meant.
A good many thoughts went through Beaton's mind, and none of them were
flattering. He had not been unconscious that the part he had played
toward this girl was ignoble, and that it had grown meaner as the fancy
which her beauty had at first kindled in him had grown cooler. He was
aware that of late he had been amusing himself with her passion in a
way that was not less than cruel, not because he wished to do so, but
because he was listless and wished nothing. He rose in saying: "I
might be a little more lenient than you think, Mrs. Mandel; but I won't
trouble you with any palliating theory. I will not come any more."

He bowed, and Mrs. Mandel said, "Of course, it's only your action that I
am concerned with."

She seemed to him merely triumphant, and he could not conceive what it
had cost her to nerve herself up to her too easy victory. He left Mrs.
Mandel to a far harder lot than had fallen to him, and he went away
hating her as an enemy who had humiliated him at a moment when he
particularly needed exalting. It was really very simple for him to stop
going to see Christine Dryfoos, but it was not at all simple for Mrs.
Mandel to deal with the consequences of his not coming. He only thought
how lightly she had stopped him, and the poor woman whom he had left
trembling for what she had been obliged to do embodied for him the
conscience that accused him of unpleasant things.

"By heavens! this is piling it up," he said to himself through his set
teeth, realizing how it had happened right on top of that stupid insult
from Mrs. Horn. Now he should have to give up his place on 'Every Other
Week; he could not keep that, under the circumstances, even if some
pretence were not made to get rid of him; he must hurry and anticipate
any such pretence; he must see Fulkerson at once; he wondered where he
should find him at that hour. He thought, with bitterness so real that
it gave him a kind of tragical satisfaction, how certainly he could find
him a little later at Mrs. Leighton's; and Fulkerson's happiness became
an added injury.

The thing had, of course, come about just at the wrong time. There never
had been a time when Beaton needed money more, when he had spent what
he had and what he expected to have so recklessly. He was in debt to
Fulkerson personally and officially for advance payments of salary.
The thought of sending money home made him break into a sco