. Like all other sports, it demands a certain
kind of integrity, in which the moralist could easily pick holes, but
which nevertheless constitutes its saving grace. Well, in this game of
love I--cheated. I said, one day, that I had won, when I hadn't won. I
said it to people who welcomed my victory, not through friendship for
me, but from envy of--her." The perspiration began to stand in beads
upon Bienville's forehead, but he held himself erect and went on with
the same outward tranquillity. His eyes were fixed on Pruyn's, and
Pruyn's on his, in a gaze from which even the nearest objects were
excluded. "In the little group in which we lived her position was
peculiar. She was both within our gates and without them. While she was
one of us by birth, she was a stranger by education and by marriage. She
was admitted with a welcome, and at the same time with a question. She
was a mark for enmity from the very first. There was something about
her that challenged our institutions. In among our worn-out passions and
moribund ideals she brought a freshness we resented. She made our
prejudices seem absurd from contrast with her own sanity, and showed our
moral standards to be rotten by the light of the something clear and
virginal in her character. I can't tell you how this effect was brought
about, but there were few of us who weren't aware of it, as there were
few of us who didn't hate it. There was but one impulse among us--to
catch her in a fault, to make her no better than ourselves. The daring
of her innocence afforded us many opportunities; and we made use of
them. One man after another confessed himself defeated. Then came my
turn. I wasn't merely defeated; I was put to utter rout, with ridicule
and scorn. That was too much for me. I couldn't stand it; and--and--I
lied."

"Oh, Bienville, that will do!" Diane cried out, in a pleading wail.
"Don't say any more!"

"I'm not sure that there's any more I need to say. The rest can be
easily understood. Every one knows how a man who lies once is obliged to
lie again, and again, and yet again, unless he frees himself as I do.
When I began I thought I had it in me to go on heroically--but I hadn't.
I can't keep it up. I'm not one of the master villains, who command
respect from force of prowess. I'm a weakling in evil, as in good, fit
neither for God nor for the devil. But that's my affair. I needn't
trouble any one here with what only concerns myself. It's too
late for me to ma