ased--and the
clothes I had: I thought I was being careful and not spoiling myself.
You may not believe it, but I was really conscientious about spending
money." She laughed in a queer, absent way. "I had such a funny idea of
what I had a right to do and what I hadn't. And I didn't spend so very
much on out-and-out luxury. But--enough to spoil me for this life."

As Norman listened, as he noted--in her appearance, manner, way of
talking--the many meaning signs of the girl hesitating at the fork of
the roads--he felt within him the twinges of fear, of jealousy--and
through fear and jealousy, the twinges of conscience. She was telling
the truth. He had undermined her ability to live in purity the life to
which her earning power assigned her. . . . _Why_ had she been so friendly
to him? Why had she received him in this informal, almost if not quite
inviting fashion?

"So you think I've changed?" she was saying. "Well--I have. Gracious,
what a little fool I was!"

His eyes lifted with an agonized question in them.

She flushed, glanced away, glanced at him again with the old, sweet
expression of childlike innocence which had so often made him wonder
whether it was merely a mannerism, or was a trick, or was indeed a beam
from a pure soul. "I'm foolish still--in certain ways," she said
significantly.

"And you always intend to be?" suggested he with a forced smile.

"Oh--yes," replied she--positively enough, yet it somehow had not the
full force of her simple short statements in the former days.

He believed her. Perhaps because he wished to believe, must believe,
would have been driven quite mad by disbelief. Still, he believed. As
yet she was good. But it would not last much longer. With him--or with
some other. If with him, then certainly afterward with another--with
others. No matter how jealously he might guard her, she would go that
road, if once she entered it. If he would have her for his very own he
must strengthen her, not weaken her, must keep her "foolish still--in
certain ways."

He said: "There's nothing in the other sort of life."

"That's what they say," replied she, with ominous irritation.
"Still--some girls--_lots_ of girls seem to get on mighty well without
being so terribly particular."

"You ought to see them after a few years."

"I'm only twenty-one," laughed she. "I've got lots of time before I'm
old. . . . You haven't--married?"

"No," said he.

"I thought I'd have heard, if you had."