miling; and that infuriated her.

"It ought to be as I wish! That much is due me, I think. Have you
anything further to ask, or is your curiosity satisfied?"

"Not yet. You say that you think something threatens you? What is it?"

"Not what threatens _you_," she said in contempt.

"That is no answer."

"It is enough for you to know."

He looked her hard in the eyes. "Perhaps," he said in a low voice, "I
know more about you than you imagine I do, Geraldine--_since last
April_."

She felt the blood leave her face, the tension crisping her muscles; she
sat up very straight and slender among the cushions and defied him.

"What do you--think you know?" she tried to sneer, but her voice shook
and failed.

He said: "I'll tell you. For one thing, you're playing fast and loose
with Dysart. He's a safe enough proposition--but what is that sort of
thing going to arouse in you?"

"What do you mean?" Her voice cleared with an immense relief. He noted
it.

"It's making you tolerant," he said quietly, "familiar with subtleties,
contemptuous of standards. It's rubbing the bloom off you. You let a man
who is married come too close to you--you betray enough curiosity
concerning him to do it. A drifting woman does that sort of thing, but
why do you cut your cables? Good Lord, Geraldine, it's a fool
business--permitting a man an intimacy----"

"More harmless than his wife permits you!" she retorted.

"That is not true."

"You are supposed to lie about such things, aren't you?" she said,
reddening to the temples. "Oh, I am learning your rotten code, you
see--the code of all these amiable people about me. You've done your
part to instruct me that promiscuous caresses are men's distraction from
ennui; Rosalie evidently is in sympathy with that form of
amusement--many men and women among whom I live in town seem to be quite
as casual as you are.... I did have standards once, scarcely knowing
what they meant; I clung to them out of instinct. And when I went out
into the world I found nobody paying any attention to them."

"You are wrong."

"No, I'm not. I go among people and see every standard I set up,
ignored. I go to the theatre and see plays that embody everything I
supposed was unthinkable, let alone unutterable. But the actors utter
everything, and the audience thinks everything--and sometimes laughs. I
can't do that--yet. But I'm progressing."

"Geraldine----"

"Wait!... My friends have taught me a great deal duri