d and explained in the high pitched voice of nervous
excitement: "Alfred Perrott says I've promised to marry him, and I say I
never did. Sinclair says he'll shoot himself if I don't marry him, and
I say, 'Well, shoot yourself!' But of course he doesn't--they never do.
And Sinclair got hold of me this afternoon and began bothering me to
give an answer, and accusing me of flirting with Alfred Perrott, and
told me I'd no heart, and was merely a Siren, oh, and quantities of
pleasant things like that. So at last I said to him, 'Well, Sinclair,
you've said enough now. You can just let me go.' And then he caught me
and kissed me--the disgusting brute--I can still feel his nasty hairy
face just there--as if he'd any right to, after what he'd said!"

She sponged a spot on her left cheek energetically.

"I've never met a man that was fit to compare with a woman!" she cried;
"they've no dignity, they've no courage, they've nothing but their
beastly passions and their brute strength! Would any woman have
behaved like that--if a man had said he didn't want her? We've too much
self-respect; we're infinitely finer than they are."

She walked about the room, dabbing her wet cheeks with a towel. Tears
were now running down with the drops of cold water.

"It makes me angry," she explained, drying her eyes.

Rachel sat watching her. She did not think of Evelyn's position; she
only thought that the world was full or people in torment.

"There's only one man here I really like," Evelyn continued; "Terence
Hewet. One feels as if one could trust him."

At these words Rachel suffered an indescribable chill; her heart seemed
to be pressed together by cold hands.

"Why?" she asked. "Why can you trust him?"

"I don't know," said Evelyn. "Don't you have feelings about people?
Feelings you're absolutely certain are right? I had a long talk with
Terence the other night. I felt we were really friends after that.
There's something of a woman in him--" She paused as though she were
thinking of very intimate things that Terence had told her, so at least
Rachel interpreted her gaze.

She tried to force herself to say, "Has to be proposed to you?" but the
question was too tremendous, and in another moment Evelyn was saying
that the finest men were like women, and women were nobler than men--for
example, one couldn't imagine a woman like Lillah Harrison thinking a
mean thing or having anything base about her.

"How I'd like you to know her!" sh