-" She stopped, not being able to find a stronger
epithet.

"It is not true," said Louise in the same expressionless voice. But now
she lifted her head, and pressed the palms of her hands together.

Madeleine pushed back her chair, as if she were about to rise. "Then I
have nothing more to say," she said; and went on: "If you are ready to
defend a man who has acted towards you as he has--in a way that makes a
respectable person's blood boil--there is indeed nothing more to be
said." She reddened with indignation. "As if it were not bad enough for
him to go, after all you have done for him, but that he must do it in
such a mean, underhand way--it's enough to make one sick. The only
thing to compare with it is his conduct on the night before he left. Do
you know, pray, that on the last evening, at a KNEIPE in the GOLDENE
HIRSCH, he boasted of what you had done for him--boasted about
everything that had happened between you--to a rowdy, tipsy crew? More
than that, he gave shameless details, about you going to his room that
afternoon----"

"It's not true, it's not true," repeated Louise, as if she had got
these few words by heart. She rose from her chair, and leaned on it,
half turning her back to Madeleine, and holding her handkerchief to her
lips.

Madeleine shrugged her shoulders. "Do you think I should say it, if it
weren't?" she asked. "I don't invent scandal. And you are bound to hear
it when you go out again. He did this, and worse than I choose to tell
you, and if you felt as you ought to about it, you would never give him
another thought. He's not worth it. He's not worth any respectable
person's----"

"Respectable!" burst in Louise, and raised two blazing eyes to her
companion's face. "That's the second time. Why do you come here,
Madeleine, and talk like that to me? He did what he was obliged
to--that's all: for I should never have let him go. Can't you see how
preposterous it is to think that by talking of respectability, and
unworthiness, you can make me leave off caring for him?--when for
months I have lived for nothing else? Do you think one can change one's
feelings so easily? Don't you understand that to love a person once is
to love him always and altogether?--his faults as well--everything he
does, good or bad, no matter what other people think of it? Oh, you
have never really cared for anyone yourself, or you would know it."

"It's not preposterous at all," retorted Madeleine. "Yes--if he had
des