e him--but that's for myself, darling, not for you."

"Do you mean me to think," persisted Laura in a voice that was tense
with horrified amazement, "that you are jealous of _me_?"

A long pause followed her words, for Gerty, instead of replying to the
question had turned to the window and was staring out upon the bared
trees in Gramercy Park. The quiet of it for the moment was almost like
the quiet of the country, and the two women who loved each other seemed
suddenly divided by miles of silent misunderstanding. Then, with a
resolute movement, Gerty looked full into Laura's face, while the light
flashed upon a mist of tears that hung over her reproachful eyes.

"Oh, Laura, Laura!" she said softly.

With a cry of remorse Laura threw herself upon her knees beside the
window, kissing the gloved hands in Gerty's lap.

But Gerty had wiped her tears away and sat smiling her little worldly
smile of knowledge. "I am jealous of you, but not in the way you meant,"
she answered. "I am jealous for myself, for the one little bit of me
that is really alive--the part of myself that is in you. I am afraid to
go over again with you the old road that I went over with myself--the
old wanting, wanting, wanting that ends in nothing."

"But why should I go over it?" asked Laura, from her knees, and the
flush in her face coloured all her manner with a fine deception.

Gerty's mocking gayety rang back into her voice. "You might as well ask
me why I am still fool enough to be in love with Perry," she returned
with her flippant laugh, "it's a part of what Arnold calls 'the damnable
contradiction of life.' You might as well ask Connie Adams why she was
born bad?"

"Was she--and how do you know it?" demanded Laura.

"I don't know." Gerty's shrug was exquisitely indifferent. "But it's
more charitable, I fancy, to suppose so. Have you seen Roger, by the
bye?"

Laura shook her head. "I would rather not. There is nothing one could
say."

"Oh, I don't know--one might congratulate him on his liberation, and
that's something. I dare say he'll have to get a divorce now, though
Perry says he hates them."

"Then I don't believe he'll do it, he doesn't live by the ordinary
ethics of the rest of us, you know. Will she marry Brady, do you think?"

"Marry Brady? My blessed innocent, Brady wouldn't marry her. He has
about as much moral responsibility as a fig tree that puts forth
thistles--and besides who could blame him? She's half crazy already