en't you? I nodded.
'What do you think of my dancing now?"

"I remember my answer to that. It was: 'You possess people gradually,
you hold them forever. It's more than personality with you, it's power.'

"Her eyes were fastened on me. They drew mine. 'That's right,' she said;
'look at me. I want you to look at me. You see I'm an ugly woman.' I
cried out in protest, and I meant it. Her face went suddenly hard. 'You
fool,' she said, 'say that I'm pretty--say it now!' And I cried out at
her, 'Not when you look like that. But you can assume beauty. You know
it.'

"She seemed to pause in her thoughts at that and smiled. 'Can I--for
you?' she asked in a way that made her divine. Then she jerked herself
back. 'I'm an ugly woman. My body is wonderful. Look!' She raised her
long arms, which were bare, gave a half-turn, and glanced at me over her
shoulder. An apparently simple movement, but it was consummate in grace
and display. 'You see?' she said, with a flashing smile. Then she turned
and stood stolidly. 'I didn't have a body worth speaking of once. What
I've got I made--every bit of it.'

"She sat down sidewise on a chair, folded her arms on the back of it,
and looked at me over them. 'I have that power you were speaking of. Do
you know just in what consists a woman's power over a man? I'll tell
you: in keeping eternally just one thing that he wants.'

"She paused a long time on that, then she went on: 'Some women hold
their own in the world and their men by beauty, others by wit, others by
culture, breeding, and occasionally there's a woman clever enough to
hold her place and her man by wealth. I've got none of these things.
I've got only one great gift of God by which I hold my power. When
that's gone, all is gone. Wise people have told me so. I know it is
true.' She rose slowly, came and stood close beside me. 'It's--it's
this--that I'm still my own. Do you want to--to rob me?"

Leighton paused, staring into the fire.

"That was the time," he said, "I went off on my longest shooting-trip. I
never saw her again." He looked up. Vi was very pale.

"You have been cruel--cruel to me," she said.

Leighton sprang to his feet and started walking up and down.

"I have not," he said. "The trouble with you women is you're forever
wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. If you thought I was going to
comfort you with sophist assurances that there's a way out of paying the
price for the kind of life you've led, you were j