. She ought to be able to understand that an
active man needs two women. One for the quiet side of his
nature, the other for the lively side. Sometimes I think
she--like a lot of wives--wouldn't object if it wasn't that she
was afraid the other lady would get me away altogether and
she'd be left stranded."

"Naturally," said Susan.

"Not at all!" cried he. "Don't you get any such notion in that
lovely little head of yours, my dear. You women don't
understand honor--a man's sense of honor."

"Naturally," repeated Susan.

He gave a glance of short disapproval. Her voice was not to
his liking. "Let's drop Mrs. G. out of this," said he. "As
I was saying, I've arranged for you to take a place here--easy
work--something to occupy you--and I'll foot the bills over and
above----"

He stopped short or, rather, was stopped by the peculiar smile
Susan had turned upon him. Before it he slowly reddened, and
his eyes reluctantly shifted. He had roused her from
listlessness, from indifference. The poisons in her blood were
burned up by the fresh, swiftly flowing currents set in motion
by his words, by the helpfulness of his expression, of his
presence. She became again the intensely healthy, therefore
intensely alive, therefore energetic and undaunted Susan Lenox,
who, when still a child, had not hesitated to fly from home,
from everyone she knew, into an unknown world.

"What are you smiling at me that way for?" demanded he in a
tone of extreme irritation.

"So you look on me as your mistress?" And never in all her
life had her eyes been so gray--the gray of cruelest irony.

"Now what's the use discussing those things? You know the
world. You're a sensible woman."

Susan made closer and more secure the large loose coil of her
hair, rose and leaned against the table. "You don't
understand. You couldn't. I'm not one of those respectable
women, like your Mrs. G., who belong to men. And I'm not one
of the other kind who also throw in their souls with their
bodies for good measure. Do _you_ think you had _me?_" She
laughed with maddening gentle mockery, went on: "I don't hate
you. I don't despise you even. You mean well. But the sight
of you makes me sick. It makes me feel as I do when I think of
a dirty tenement I used to have to live in, and of the things
that I used to have to let crawl over me. So I want to forget
you as soon as I can--and that will be soon after you get out
of my sight."

H