s in this room--or any sound she didn't understand." She
reseated herself, began to massage her throat where his
fingers had clutched it. "It's fortunate my skin doesn't mar
easily," she went on. "What were you saying?"

"I know the truth now. You love Brent. That's the milk in
the cocoanut."

She reflected on this, apparently with perfect tranquillity,
apparently with no memory of his furious threat against her
and against Brent. She said:

"Perhaps I was simply piqued because there's another woman."

"You are jealous."

"I guess I was--a little."

"You admit that you love him, you----"

He checked himself on the first hissing breath of the foul
epithet. She said tranquilly:

"Jealousy doesn't mean love. We're jealous in all sorts of
ways--and of all sorts of things."

"Well--_he_ cares nothing about _you_."

"Nothing."

"And never will. He'd despise a woman who had been----"

"Don't hesitate. Say it. I'm used to hearing it,
Freddie--and to being it. And not 'had been' but 'is.' I
still am, you know."

"You're not!" he cried. "And never were--and never could
be--for some unknown reason, God knows why."

She shrugged her shoulders, lit another cigarette. He went on:

"You can't get it out of your head that because he's
interested in you he's more or less stuck on you. That's the
way with women. The truth is, he wants you merely to act in
his plays."

"And I want that, too."

"You think I'm going to stand quietly by and let this thing go
on--do you?"

She showed not the faintest sign of nervousness at this
repetition, more carefully veiled, of his threat against
her--and against Brent. She chose the only hopeful course;
she went at him boldly and directly. Said she with amused
carelessness:

"Why not? He doesn't want me. Even if I love him, I'm not
giving him anything you want."

"How do you know what I want?" cried he, confused by this
unexpected way of meeting his attack. "You think I'm simply
a brute--with no fine instincts or feelings----"

She interrupted him with a laugh. "Don't be absurd, Freddie,"
said she. "You know perfectly well you and I don't call out the
finer feelings in each other. If either of us wanted that
sort of thing, we'd have to look elsewhere."

"You mean Brent--eh?"

She laughed with convincing derision. "What nonsense!" She
put her arms round his neck, and her lips close to his. The
violet-gray eyes were half closed, the perfume of t