Ethel pursued.

"How can you say that?" And he put all the heart he was capable of into
the question.

"You don't deny it," she said quietly.

He breathed hard and then said bitterly:

"What a contemptible opinion you must have of me."

"Then we're quits, aren't we?"

"How?" he asked.

"Haven't YOU one of ME?"

"Of YOU? Why, Ethel--"

"Surely every married man MUST have a contemptible opinion of the woman
he covertly makes love to. If he hadn't he couldn't do it, could he?"
Once again she levelled her cold, impassive eyes on Brent's flushed
face.

"I don't follow you," was all Brent said.

"Haven't you had time to think of an answer?"

"I don't now what you're driving at," he added.

Ethel smiled her most enigmatical smile:

"No? I think you do." She waited a moment. Brent said nothing. This was
a new mood of Ethel's. It baffled him.

Presently she relieved the silence by asking him:

"What happened last night?"

He hesitated. Then he answered:

"I'd rather not say. I'd sound like a cad blaming a woman."

"Never mind how it sounds. Tell it. It must have been amusing."

"Amusing? Good God!" He bent over her again. "Oh, the more I look at
you and listen to you, the more I realise I should never have married."

"Why DID you?" came the cool question.

Brent answered with all the power at his command. Here was the moment
to lay his heart bare that Ethel might see.

"Have you ever seen a young hare, fresh from its kind, run headlong
into a snare? Have you ever seen a young man free of the trammels of
college, dash into a NET? _I_ did! I wasn't trap-wise!"

He paced the room restlessly, all the self-pity rising in him. He went
on: "Good God! what nurslings we are when we first feel our feet! We're
like children just loose from the leading-strings. Anything that
glitters catches us. Every trap that is set for our unwary feet we drop
into. I did. Dropped in. Caught hand and foot--mind and soul."

"Soul?" queried Ethel, with a note of doubt.

"Yes," he answered.

"Don't you mean BODY?" she suggested.

"Body, mind AND soul!" he said, with an air of finality.

"Well, BODY anyway," summed up Ethel.

"And for what?" he went on. "For WHAT? Love! Companionship! That is
what we build on in marriage. And what did _I_ realise? Hate and
wrangling! Wrangling--just as the common herd, with no advantages,
wrangle, and make it a part of their lives--the zest to their union.
It's been my curse."

"Why