nce I have known Mr.
Craven you have tried to get him away from me. And now you are doing
your best to make me give up a man who loves me and wants to marry me."

"Beryl! Please!"

"No, I will not bear it. I will not! I admired you. I had a cult for
you. Everyone knew it. I went about praising you, telling everyone you
were the most wonderful woman I had ever known. You can ask anybody.
People used to laugh at me about my infatuation for you. I stood up for
you always. They told me--but I wouldn't believe!"

"What did they tell you?"

"Never mind. But now I begin to believe it is true. You can't bear to
see other women happy. That's what it is."

"Beryl, it isn't that! No, it isn't that!"

"You have had it all. But that doesn't satisfy you. You want to prevent
other women from having any of the happiness that you can't have now. It
is cruel. I never thought you were like that. I took you as a pattern
of what a woman of your age should be. I looked up to you. I would
have come to you for counsel, for advice. You were my book of wisdom.
I thought you were far above all the pettinesses that disfigure other
women, the women who hate us girls, who want to snatch everything from
us. And now you are trying to do me more harm than any other woman has
ever tried to do me!"

"I--I will prove to you that it isn't so!" said Lady Sellingworth.
"Please shut the door."

Miss Van Tuyn obeyed.

"But--but--first tell me something."

"What?"

"Tell me the absolute truth."

"I am not a liar, Adela."

"But sometimes--truth is difficult sometimes."

"What is it you want to know?"

"Do you care for this--do you care for Mr. Arabian?"

"Perhaps I do."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean that you are really thinking of doing what he wishes you to
do?"

"I haven't told him yet."

"But you are thinking of marrying him?"

"I know nothing against him. He cares for me very much."

Lady Sellingworth was silent.

"Perhaps you don't believe that? Perhaps you think that's impossible?"

"Oh, no! But--"

"I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking that I am rich
now that my father is dead. But he is rich too. He does not need my
money. He has never done any work. He has been an idler all his life.
He has often told me that he has had too much money and that it has done
him harm, made him an idler."

"And you believe all that?"

"I believe that he cares for me very much. I know he does."

"Once I thought t