on people, Robert."

"That sort of thing makes me sick. It ought to make you sick. I don't
know why it doesn't. You don't seem to care--to have any standards.
You're unmoral in your outlook--perhaps you're too young--you don't
realize. A rotter like Howard who takes other people's money just to
enjoy himself--a girl like Gertie Sumners who goes off with the first man
who asks her----"

"You don't understand, Robert."

"No," he said with a laugh, "I don't."

"Gertie Sumners hasn't long to live. I sent her to the hospital last
week, and they told her honestly. And she wanted so much to see Italy.
I don't think Howard cares for her or she for him, except in a comradely
sort of way. They loved the same things--and he was sorry--he wanted to
give her her one good time."

"He told you all that, I suppose?"

"No," she answered soberly. "But I know."

He waited a moment. He was trying desperately to hold back--to stop
himself. He was sorry about Gertie Sumners. But everything was against
him. The room was against him--the faun dancing noiselessly among the
shadows, the little things that Francey had gathered about her, the dear
personal things that can become terrible in their poignancy, Francey
herself, standing there slender and grave-eyed, judging him, weighing
him. They were all leagued together. They spoke with one voice. "We
belong TO one another. We understand. But you don't belong. You are
outside."

"I don't see, at any rate," he said, "what it has got to do with you--or
why you should be going away."

"I'm going after them. There's no one else. Howard will expect
prosecution. He will think that he'll never be able to come home. He's
pretty reckless, but they will be thinking of that all the time. It will
spoil everything for them."

"And what can you do?"

"I can tell them it's all right."

"How can it be?"

"It is," she said curtly. "The money has been paid back."

"Paid back!" Understanding burst upon him. "_You_ paid it?"

He stood up. He knew that resentment flickered in her--a fine, dangerous
resentment against him because he had dragged so simple and obvious a
thing out of its insignificance. But his own anger was like a mad,
runaway horse, rushing him to destruction.

"It was stupid of him not to have come to me in the first place," she
said, with an effort. "He should have known----"

He broke in fiercely.

"You can't--can't go like that."

"I must. If t