y, "you
are most unjust. I dont excuse myself for behaving wickedly, but I
_never_ deceived you or told you a falsehood. Never. When he first spoke
wrongly to me, I told you at once; and you did not care."

"Not a straw. It was nothing to me that he loved you: the point was,
did you love him? If not, then all was well: if so, our marriage was
already at an end. But you mistake my drift. Falsehood is something more
than fibbing. You never told fibs--except the two or three dozen a week
that mere politeness required and which you never thought of counting;
but you never told me the truth, Marian, because you never told your
self the truth. You told me what you told yourself, I grant you; and so
you were not conscious of deceit. I dont reproach you. Surely you can
bear to be told what every honest man tells himself almost daily."

"I suppose I have deserved it," said Marian; "but unkind words from you
are a new experience. You are very unlike yourself to-night."

He repressed, with visible effort, an explosion of impatience. "On the
contrary, I am like myself--I actually am myself to-night, I hope." Then
the explosion came. "Is it utterly impossible for you to say something
real to me? Only learn to do that, and you may have ten love romances
every year with other men, if you like. Be anything rather than a
ladylike slave and liar. There! as usual, the truth makes you shrink
from me. As I said before, I refuse further intercourse on such terms.
They have proved unkind in the long run."

"You spoke plainly enough to her," said Marian, glancing at the bed,
"but in the long run it did her no good."

"She would have laughed me to scorn if I had minced matters, for she
never deceived herself. Society, by the power of the purse, set her to
nautch-girl's work, and forbade her the higher work that was equally
within her power. Being enslaved and debauched in this fashion, how
could she be happy except when she was not sober? It was her own
immediate interest to drink; it was her tradesman's interest that she
should drink; it was her servants' interest that she should be pleased
with them for getting drink for her. She was clever, good-natured, more
constant to her home and her man than you, a living fountain of innocent
pleasure as a dancer, singer, and actress; and here she lies, after
mischievously spending her talent in a series of entertainments too dull
for hell and too debased for any better place, dead of a preventable