re any decency anywhere in you?" he flashed out,
eagerly seizing the chance to forget his own shame in
contemplating her greater degradation.

She looked out of the window. There was something terrible in
the calmness of her profile. She finally said in an even,
pensive voice:

"You have been intimate with a great many women, Rod. But you
have never got acquainted with a single one."

He laughed good-humoredly. "Oh, yes, I have. I've learned
that 'every woman is at heart a rake,' as Mr. Jingle Pope says."

She looked at him again, her face now curiously lighted by her
slow faint smile. "Perhaps they showed you only what they
thought you'd be able to appreciate," she suggested.

He took this as evidence of her being jealous of him. "Tell
me, Susan, did you leave me--in Forty-fourth Street--because
you thought or heard I wasn't true to you?"

"What did Drumley tell you?"

"I asked him, as you said in your note. He told me he knew no
reason."

So Drumley had decided it was best Rod should not know why she
left. Well, perhaps--probably--Drumley was right. But there
was no reason why he shouldn't know the truth now. "I left,"
said she, "because I saw we were bad for each other."

This amused him. She saw that he did not believe. It wounded
her, but she smiled carelessly. Her smile encouraged him to
say: "I couldn't quite make up my mind whether the reason was
jealousy or because you had the soul of a shameless woman.
You see, I know human nature, and I know that a woman who once
crosses the line never crosses back. I'll always have to
watch you, my dear. But somehow I like it. I guess you
have--you and I have--a rotten streak in us. We were brought
up too strictly. That always makes one either too firm or too
loose. I used to think I liked good women. But I don't.
They bore me. That shows I'm rotten."

"Or that your idea of what's good is--is mistaken."

"You don't pretend that _you_ haven't done wrong?" cried Rod.

"I might have done worse," replied she. "I might have wronged
others. No, Rod, I can't honestly say I've ever felt wicked."

"Why, what brought you here?"

She reflected a moment, then smiled. "Two things brought me
down," said she. "In the first place, I wasn't raised right.
I was raised as a lady instead of as a human being. So I
didn't know how to meet the conditions of life. In the second
place--" her smile returned, broadened--"I was too--too what's
called 'g