to warn Gladys
Martin against Hamar, how would Gladys take the warning? Would she pay
any attention to it? The odds were she would not; that having set her
heart on marrying Hamar for his money, she would blind herself to his
faults and resolutely shut her ears to anything said against him. Also
there was the very great possibility of Gladys being rude to her--and
even the thought of this was more than she could bear to contemplate.
If only Shiel were reasonable! If only he could be made to see how
utterly ridiculous it was for him to think of winning such a girl as
Gladys--Gladys the pretty, dolly-faced, pampered actress, who had
never known a single hardship, had always had a well-lined purse, and
would never, never marry poverty! Then back to Lilian Rosenberg's mind
came her parting with Shiel--she recalled his intense scorn and
indignation. A liar! He did not wish to have anything to do with a
liar! It's a good thing every man is not so fastidious, she said to
herself bitterly, or the population of the world would soon fizz out.
She laughed. He had never questioned her morals in any other
sense--perhaps, in his innocence or assumed innocence, he had thought
them spotless--at all events he had most graciously ignored them. But
a liar! A liar--he could not put up with. And why! Because the lie had
touched him on a sore point. When lies do not touch a sore point,
they, too, are ignored.

She walked to the Imperial and looked again at Gladys's photographs.
How any man could fall madly in love with such a face, was more than
she could conceive. It was a mincing, maudlin, finicking face--it
irritated her intensely. She turned away from it in disgust, yet came
back to have another look--and yet another. God knows why! It
fascinated her. Finally she left it, fully resolved to let its odious
original go to her fate--without a warning. Soon after her return to
the Hall in Cockspur Street, she was sent for by Hamar.

"Didn't I tell you," he said, "that you were on no account to
encourage Mr. Kelson?"

"You did!" Lilian Rosenberg replied.

"Will you kindly explain, then," Hamar said, "why you have disobeyed
my orders?"

"How have I disobeyed them?" Lilian Rosenberg asked.

"How!" Hamar retorted, his cheeks white with passion. "You dare to
inquire how! Why, you were on the point of accompanying him to his
rooms last night to supper, when I stopped you! I have overlooked your
disobedience so many times that I can do so no