moment went on, more
quietly: "Now, see here, Anne, I'm through parleying with you. I shall go
on trying to prevent this marriage, but succeed or fail, I don't want to
see your face again as long as I live. I'm through with you. You _are_
like your mother. You are a damned vampire. God, how I have loved and
trusted you, how I have believed in you. I did not believe that the woman
lived who could degrade herself as you are about to degrade yourself. I
have had my eyes opened. All my life I have loved you without even knowing
you. All my life I--"

"All my life I have loved you," she broke in cringingly.

He laughed aloud. "The hell you have!" he cried out. "You have allowed me
to hold you in my arms, to kiss you, to fondle you, and you have trembled
with joy and passion,--and now you call it love! Love! You have never loved
in your life and you never will. You call self-gratification by the name
of love. Thank God, I know you at last. I ought to pity you. In all
humanity I ought to pity a fellow creature so devoid of--"

"Stop!" she cried, her face flaming red. "Go! Go away! You have said
enough. I will hate you if you utter another word, and I don't want to
hate you, Braden. I want to go on loving you all my life. I _must_ go on
loving you."

"You have my consent," he said, ironically, bowing low before her.
"Humanity compels me to grant you all the consolation you can find in
deceiving yourself."

"Wait!" she cried out, as he turned toward the door. "I--I am hurt, Braden.
Can't you see how you have hurt me? Won't you--"

"Of course, you are hurt!" he shouted. "You squeal when you are hurt. You
think only of yourself when you cry 'I am hurt'! Don't you ever think of
any one else?" His hand grasped the big silver door-knob.

"I want you to understand, if you can, why I am doing this thing you
revile me for."

"I understand," he said curtly.

She hurried her words, fearful that he might rush from the room before she
could utter the belated explanation.

"I don't want to be poor. I don't want to go through life as my mother has
gone, always fighting for the things she most desired, always being behind
the game she was forced to play. You can't understand,--you are too big and
fine,--you cannot understand the little things, Braden. I want love and
happiness, but I want the other, too. Don't you see that with all this
money at my command I can be independent, I can be safe for all time, I
can give more than mysel