ye!"

She rose, and he perforce with her. "And do you mean it?" he asked.
"Forever?"

"Forever. This is truly the last time I will ever see you if I can help
it. Oh, I feel sorry enough for you!" she said, with a glance at his
face. "I do believe you are in earnest. But it's too late now. Don't let
us talk about it any more! But we shall, if we meet, and so,--"

"And so good-bye! Well, I've nothing more to say, and I might as well
say that. I think you've been very good to me. It seems to me as if you
had been--shall I say it?--trying to give me a chance. Is that so?" She
dropped her eyes and did not answer.

"You found it was no use! Well, I thank you for trying. It's curious to
think that I once had your trust, your regard, and now I haven't it. You
don't mind my remembering that I had? It'll be some little consolation,
and I believe it will be some help. I know I can't retrieve the past
now. It is too late. It seems too preposterous--perfectly lurid--that I
could have been going to tell you what a tangle I'd got myself in, and
to ask you to help untangle me. I must choke in the infernal coil, but
I'd like to have the sweetness of your pity in it--whatever it is."

She put out her hand. "Whatever it is, I do pity you; I said that."

"Thank you." He kissed the band she gave him and went.

He had gone on some such terms before; was it now for the last time? She
believed it was. She felt in herself a satiety, a fatigue, in which
his good looks, his invented airs and poses, his real trouble, were all
alike repulsive. She did not acquit herself of the wrong of having let
him think she might yet have liked him as she once did; but she had been
honestly willing to see whether she could. It had mystified her to find
that when they first met in New York, after their summer in St. Barnaby,
she cared nothing for him; she had expected to punish him for his
neglect, and then fancy him as before, but she did not. More and
more she saw him selfish and mean, weak-willed, narrow-minded, and
hard-hearted; and aimless, with all his talent. She admired his talent
in proportion as she learned more of artists, and perceived how uncommon
it was; but she said to herself that if she were going to devote herself
to art, she would do it at first-hand. She was perfectly serene and
happy in her final rejection of Beaton; he had worn out not only her
fancy, but her sympathy, too.

This was what her mother would not believe when Alma report