ion."

"That may be. That is safer, after all, than being the slave of some
other will stronger than my own. Why do you try to disturb my
life--now--after so many really happy months of friendship?"

"Were they so happy? Agnes, were they happy?"

She hesitated.

"Yes," she said, at last; "relatively, yes."

"It is quite true. Good women drive us to the bad ones."

"Oh! what can you mean? Surely we are saying too much. We shall reproach
ourselves later. I live, again and again, through one conversation. The
phrases come into my mind with every possible shade of significance."

She pushed back her hat, and pressed her hand to her brow, which was
contracting nervously as she spoke.

"I don't wish to be altered by any change in principle," she continued,
"nor distracted, from my plain obligations, into other interests. I
daresay I sound quite heartless and odd. I daresay you won't like me any
more." Her voice faltered, but her lips remained precise. "But one must
know one's mind--one _must_. You don't know yours; that is the whole
trouble, David."

She had never called him by his Christian name before, and now the
forced sternness of her tone gave it almost the accent of a farewell.

"Perhaps we have helped each other," she went on; "at all events, you
have taught me how to look at things. You are clever and original and
all that. I am rather commonplace, and I never have new or surprising
thoughts. The more I learn, the more I grow attached to the ordinary
ways. Once you called me the ideal _bourgeoise_. You were right."

"Not entirely," said Rennes. "You think too much."

"You taught me that. I never used to consider people or notions. I
accepted them without criticism."

"The madness of criticism has entered into you," he said. "It is the
worst, most destructive thing on earth."

"How could I have accepted you--as my friend--without it?" she asked.
"You puzzled me. I tried to understand you. No one had ever puzzled me
before. No one, you may be quite sure, will ever puzzle me, in the same
degree, again."

She gave him a long, tearful glance, in which defiance, reproach,
determination, and a certain cruelty shone like iron under water. He
made a movement toward her. The strength of his more emotional nature
might have made a final assault--not uselessly--on her assumed
"reasonableness." No appeal, no threat could have moved her from the
mental attitude she had decided on--the duty of keeping her word to