on her mischievous course
to do other than laugh and pursue it with renewed zest for her capture.
Of course there remained Nick, chosen adviser and confidant; but for
some reason Olga shrank from discussing Max with him. She had an uneasy
dread lest Nick's intelligence should leap ahead of her and disclose to
her with disconcerting suddenness facts and possibilities with which she
was quite unprepared to reckon. She visualized his grin of amused
comprehension over the means she had devised for her own deliverance and
the unpleasant quandary in which it had placed her. Nick's sense of
humour was at times almost too keen. She smiled faintly to herself over
this reflection. She could not deny that there were points in the
situation which appealed even to her own.

Yet she was more ashamed than amused. The discovery that Max was human
had somehow altered everything, and made her own conduct appear
dastardly. She had acted maliciously albeit, in self-defence; but now
that it seemed that her point might pierce his armour, she wanted to
withdraw it. She shrank unspeakably from seeing him vanquished. It would
have hurt her to find him at her own feet, but the bare thought of him
at Violet's--Violet who had no mercy upon old or young, who would
trample him underfoot without a pang and pass gaily on--that thought was
unbearable.

Of course she might be wrong. It was still possible that her original
conception of him might be the correct one. He had a passion for his
profession, she knew. It was quite possible that this had inspired his
taking that awful risk the night before, quite possible also that a
hopeless case did not appeal to him and that he had not therefore
greatly cared how soon or in what manner Mrs. Stubbs had passed out
through the prison-door which it was his work to guard. She realized
vaguely that this form of callousness was not so hideous as she had at
first deemed it. She also began to realize that for a man who had seen
suffering and death in many forms and who found himself finally
powerless to alleviate the one or avert the other, the inevitable end
could not possess the tragic significance which it possessed for others.

Either point of view of his character was possible. She did not know him
well enough to decide to her own satisfaction which was actually the
true one. But the fact remained that she had delivered him to Violet to
be tormented, and that before he had given any sign of suffering she had