roughly. "Take a brace, Stella. Do you realize what
sort of a state of mind you're drifting into? You married me under more
or less compulsion,--compulsion of circumstances,--and gradually you're
beginning to get dissatisfied, to pity yourself. You'll precipitate
things you maybe don't dream of now, if you keep on. Damn it, I didn't
create the circumstances. I only showed you a way out. You took it. It
satisfied you for a while; you can't deny it did. But it doesn't any
more. You're nursing a lot of illusions, Stella, that are going to make
your life full of misery."

"I'm not," she sobbed. "It's because I haven't any illusions
that--that--Oh, what's the use of talking, Jack? I'm not complaining. I
don't even know what gave me this black mood, just now. I suppose that
queer miracle of my voice coming back upset me. I feel--well, as if I
were a different person, somehow; as if I had forfeited any right to
have it. Oh, it's silly, you'll say. But it's there. I can't help my
feeling--or my lack of it."

Fyfe's face whitened a little. His hands dropped from her shoulders.

"Now you're talking to the point," he said quietly. "Especially that
last. We've been married some little time now, and if anything, we're
farther apart in the essentials of mating than we were at the
beginning. You've committed yourself to an undertaking, yet more and
more you encourage yourself to wish for the moon. If you don't stop
dreaming and try real living, don't you see a lot of trouble ahead for
yourself? It's simple. You're slowly hardening yourself against me,
beginning to resent my being a factor in your life. It's only a matter
of time, if you keep on, until your emotions center about some other
man."

"Why do you talk like that?" she said bitterly. "Do you think I've got
neither pride nor self-respect?"

"Yes. Both a-plenty," he answered. "But you're a woman, with a rather
complex nature even for your sex. If your heart and your head ever clash
over anything like that, you'll be in perfect hell until one or the
other gets the upper hand. You're a thoroughbred, and high-strung as
thoroughbreds are. It takes something besides three meals a day and
plenty of good clothes to complete your existence. If I can't make it
complete, some other man will make you think he can. Why don't you try?
Haven't I got any possibilities as a lover? Can't you throw a little
halo of romance about me, for your own sake--if not for mine?"

He drew her up clo