managed to articulate at last.
"You must let me come round and see you."

It was her voice now that was dead. "When will you come, Rash?"

"Now--at once--if you can see me."

"Then come."

She put up the receiver without saying more. He knew that she knew.
She knew at least that something had happened which was fatal to them
both.

She received him not in the drawing-room, but in a little den on the
right of the front door which was also alive with Miss Walbrook's
modern personality. A gold-colored portiere from Albert Herter's looms
screened them from the hall, and the chairs were covered with bits of
Herter tapestry representing fruits. A cabinet of old white Bennington
faience stood against a wall, which was further adorned with three or
four etchings of Sears Gallagher's. Barbara wore a lacy thing in
hydrangea-colored crepe de chine, loosely girt with a jade-green
ribbon tasselled in gold, the whole bringing out the faintly Egyptian
note in her personality.

They dispensed with a greeting, because she spoke the minute he
crossed the threshold of the room.

"Rash, what is it? Why couldn't you tell me on the telephone?"

He wished now that he had. It would have saved this explanation face
to face. "Because I couldn't. Because--because I've been too much of
an idiot to--to tell you about it--either on the telephone or in any
other way."

"How?" He thought she must understand, but she seemed purposely dense.
"Sit down. Tell me about it. It can't be so terrible--all of a sudden
like this."

He couldn't sit down. He could only turn away from her and gulp in his dry
throat. "You remember what I said--what I said--yesterday--about--about
the--the Gissing fellow?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes. Go on. Get it out."

"Well--well--I've--I've done that."

She threw out her arms. She threw back her head till the little
nut-brown throat was taut. The cry rent her. It rent him.

"You--_fool_!"

He stood with head hanging. He longed to run away, and yet he longed
also to throw himself at her feet. If he could have done exactly as he
felt impelled, he would have laid his head on her breast and wept like
a child.

She swung away from him, pacing the small room like a frenzied animal.
Her breath came in short, hard pantings that were nearly sobs.
Suddenly she stopped in front of him with a sort of calm.

"What made you?"

He barely lifted his agonized black eyes. "You,"

She was in revolt again. "I? What did I d