a's voice. "You actually had
the--the--the presumption!" Coherent words suddenly seemed to fail her,
but she went on regardless, not caring how they came. "A man like
Piers,--a--a--Triton like that,--such a being as is only turned out once
in--in a dozen centuries! Oh, fool! Fool!" She clenched her hands, and
beat them impotently upon her lap. "What did it matter what he'd done? He
was yours. He worshipped you. And the worship of a man like Piers must
be--must be--" She broke off, one hand caught convulsively to her throat;
then swallowed hard and rushed on. "You sent him away, did you? You
wouldn't live with him any longer? My God! Piers!" Again her throat
worked spasmodically, and she controlled it with fierce effort. "He won't
stay true to you of course," she said, more quietly. "You don't expect
that, do you? You can't care--since you wouldn't stick to him. You've
practically forced him into the mire. I sometimes think that one virtuous
woman can do more harm in the world than a dozen of the other sort.
You've embittered him for life. You've made him suffer horribly. I expect
you've suffered too. I hope you have! But your sorrows are not to be
compared with his. He has red blood in his veins, but you're too
attenuated with goodness to know what real suffering means. You had the
whole world in your grasp and you threw it away for a whim, just because
you were too small, too contemptibly mean, to understand. You thought you
loved him, I daresay. Well, you didn't. Love is a very different thing.
Love never casts away. But of course you can't understand that. You are
one of those women who keep down all the blinds lest the sunshine should
fade their souls. You don't know even the beginnings of Love!"

Passionately she uttered the words, but in a voice pitched so low that
Avery only just caught them. And having uttered them almost in the same
breath, she took up the speaking-tube and addressed the chauffeur.

Avery sat quite still and silent. She felt as if she had been attacked
and completely routed by a creature considerably smaller, but infinitely
more virile, more valiant, than herself.

Ina did not speak to her again for several minutes. She threw herself
back against the cushion with an oddly petulant gesture, and leaned there
staring moodily out.

Then, as they neared their starting-point, she sat up and spoke again
with a species of bored indifference. "Of course it's no affair of mine.
I don't care two straws