the press. At ten o'clock
in the morning--precisely at ten--they're going to put on the screws." I
laughed. "I guess they'll have me squeezed pretty dry before noon."

She shivered.

"So, you see," I continued, "I don't deserve any credit for giving you up.
I only anticipate you by about twenty-four hours. Mine's a deathbed
repentance."

"I'd thought of that," said she reflectively. Presently she added: "Then,
it is true." And I knew Sammy had given her some hint that prepared her for
my confession.

"Yes--I can't go blustering through the matrimonial market," replied I.
"I've been thrown out. I'm a beggar at the gates."

"A beggar at the gates," she murmured.

I got up and stood looking down at her.

"Don't _pity_ me!" I said. "My remark was a figure of speech. I want
no alms. I wouldn't take even you as alms. They'll probably get me down,
and stamp the life out of me--nearly. But not quite--don't you lose sight
of that. They can't kill me, and they can't tame me. I'll recover, and I'll
strew the Street with their blood and broken bones."

She drew in her breath sharply.

"And a minute ago I was almost liking you!" she exclaimed.

I retreated to my chair and gave her a smile that must have been grim.

"Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's," said I. "If
there are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out some
day that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend--and that you
wouldn't like them, if they were."

"What--just what--happened to you down town to-day--after you left me?"

"A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap--why, I can't quite
fathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away."

"A friend of yours?"

"The man we were talking about--your ex-god--Langdon."

"Langdon," she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had
hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms
still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet in
pale blue slippers appear and disappear--first one, then the other--at the
edge of her trailing skirt.

Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me.

"You are sure it was he?" she asked.

I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had
been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth
and innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced,
intelligent, that she understood the whole of life,