alk like
that any more."

"No--I quite see that," he said thoughtfully. "I can explain it, you
know."

"I'm tired of explaining," she said wearily, sitting on the table with
her legs swinging. Her hair was plaited back and tied with a big bow, as
she usually wore it in the house; his heart contracted with pity as he
saw what a girl she looked.

"I don't think people ever realize how deeply this question of physical
fidelity has sunk into us--as a race, I mean. If you knew it, Marcella,
it's absolutely the first thing of which people accuse those they love
when they get deranged in any way. A dear old man I knew--he was quite
eighty--a professor of psychology--when he was dying had the most
terrible grief because he seriously thought he'd got unlimited numbers
of girls into trouble. I suppose"--he went on slowly, wrestling with his
thoughts as he put them into words--"I suppose it's because we resent
infidelity so bitterly or else--why is it it touches us on the raw so
much? Why is it you were so sick with me for saying that insane thing
about King and Hop Lee?"

"I don't know, Louis," she said hopelessly. "It simply made me feel
sick."

"But--it _did_ touch you on the raw, you know, or you wouldn't have felt
sick. It wouldn't make you feel sick if I accused you of murder or
burglary--I believe it's simply because we might, all of us, very
conceivably break the seventh commandment; in fact, I don't believe
anybody goes through life, however sheltered and inhibited they may be,
without wanting to break it at least once! And that's why we're so mad
when anyone says we have."

She thought this out for a while.

"Well, I think that's perfectly disgusting, and that's all I can say
about it," she said finally.

Later he explained in a very clear, concise way, the reason for his
outburst. Partly it was periodic; partly it was the result of outside
circumstances. He had lied to her to "keep his end up," he said; he had
clung to his father's money because he could not bear that she should be
penniless; then a letter from his mother, brought at his request by
King, had upset him. It told how Violet had returned his engagement
ring; she had forgotten to do it until her husband, noticing it in her
jewel-case, had asked its history and insisted on its return. His mother
had said she would keep it safe for him until he came back; his father
had said it must be sold to pay some of the debts Louis had left. There
had apparen