to her cheeks, the angry tears started, but
her quivering lips were not under command and she could only stare at
him through the blur of grief, while her white hands clinched and
relaxed, and her fast-beating heart seemed to be driving the very breath
from her body.

"Geraldine, dear----"

"It wasn't fair!" she broke out fiercely; "there is no honour in you--no
loyalty! Oh, Duane! Duane! How could you--at the very moment we were
nearer together than we had ever been! It isn't jealousy that is crying
out in me; it is nothing common or ignoble in me that resents what you
have done! It is the treachery of it! How _could_ you, Duane?"

The utter hopelessness of clearing himself left him silent. How much was
to be asked of him as sacrifice to code? How far was he expected to go
to shield Sylvia Quest--this unhappy, demoralised girl, whose reputation
was already at the mercy of two men?

"Geraldine," he said, "it was nothing but a carnival flirtation--a
chance encounter that meant nothing--the idlest kind of----"

"Is it idle to do what you did--and what she did? Oh, if I had only not
seen it--if I only didn't know! I never dreamed of such a thing in you.
Bunny Gray and I were taking a short cut to the Gray Water to sit out
the rest of his dance--and he saw it, too--and he was furious--he must
have been--because he's devoted to Sylvia." She made a hopeless gesture
and dropped her hand to her side: "What a miserable night it has been
for me! It's all spoiled--it's ended.... And I--my courage went.... I've
done what I never thought to do again--what I was fighting down to make
myself safe enough for you to marry--_you_ to marry!" She laughed, but
the mirth rang shockingly false.

"You mean that you had one glass of champagne," he said.

"Yes, and another with Jack Dysart. I'll have some more presently. Does
it concern you?"

"I think so, Geraldine."

"You are wrong. Neither does what you've been doing concern me--the kind
of man you've been--the various phases of degradation you have
accomplished----"

"What particular species of degradation?" he asked wearily, knowing that
Dysart was now bent on his destruction. "Never mind; don't answer,
Geraldine," he added, "because there's no use in trying to set myself
right; there's no way of doing it. All I can say is that I care
absolutely nothing for Sylvia Quest, nor she for me; that I love you;
that if I have ever been unworthy of you--as God knows I have--it is a
bit