He was silent.

"Isn't it so?" she insisted.

"Yes," he admitted. And his handsome eyes looked the love so
near to hate that fills a strong man for a strong woman when
they clash and he cannot conquer. "No wonder I'm a fool about
you," he muttered.

"I don't purpose that any man or woman shall use me," she went
on, "in exchange for merely a few flatteries. I insist that
if they use me, they must let me use them. I shan't be mean
about it, but I shan't be altogether a fool, either. And what
is a woman but a fool when she lets men use her for nothing
but being called sweet and loving and womanly? Unless that's
the best she can do, poor thing!"

"You needn't sneer at respectable women."

"I don't," replied she. "I've no sneers for anybody. I've
discovered a great truth, Freddie the deep-down equality of
all human beings--all of them birds in the same wind and
battling with it each as best he can. As for myself--with
money, with a career that interests me, with position that'll
give me any acquaintances and friends that are congenial, I
don't care what is said of me."

As her plan unfolded itself fully to his understanding, which
needed only a hint to enable it to grasp all, he forgot his
rage for a moment in his interest and admiration. Said he:

"You've used me. Now you're going to use Brent--eh?
Well--what will you give _him_ in exchange?"

"He wants someone to act certain parts in certain plays."

"Is that _all_ he wants?"

"He hasn't asked anything else."

"And if he did?"

"Don't be absurd. You know Brent."

"He's not in love with you," assented Palmer. "He doesn't
want you that way. There's some woman somewhere, I've
heard--and he doesn't care about anybody but her."

He was speaking in a careless, casual way, watching her out of
the corner of his eye. And she, taken off guard, betrayed in
her features the secret that was a secret even from herself.
He sprang up with a bound, sprang at her, caught her up out of
her chair, the fingers of one hand clasping her throat.

"I thought so!" he hissed. "You love him--damn you! You love
him! You'd better look out, both of you!"

There came a knock at the door between her bedroom and that of
Madame Clelie. Palmer released her, stood panting, with
furious eyes on the door from which the sound had come. Susan
called, "It's all right, Clelie, for the present." Then she
said to Palmer, "I told Clelie to knock if she ever heard
voice