less like Robert."

"They would be, dear; all the men _you've_ known. But, you see,
something happened. Nothing ever happened to you."

"No. Nothing very much has happened to me. Nothing very much ever will."

"You never wanted things to happen, did you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I'm interested most in the things that happen to
other people."

"You dear! If I'd been like you----"

"I wish," said Jane, "you'd known Robert sooner."

Mrs. Tailleur's lips parted, but no voice came through them.

"Then," said Jane, "whatever happened never would have happened,
probably."

"I wonder. What do you suppose happened?"

"I don't know. I've no business to know."

"What do you think? Tell me--tell me!"

"I think you've been very badly handled."

"Yes. You may think so."

"When you were young--too young to understand it."

"Ah, I was never too young to understand. That's the difference between
you and me."

"That makes it all the worse, then."

"All the worse! So that's what you think? How does it make you feel to
me?"

"It makes me feel that I want to take you away, and warm you and wrap
you round, so that nothing could ever touch you and hurt you any more."

"That's how it makes you feel?"

"That's how it makes us both feel."

"_He_ takes it that way, too?"

"Of course he does. Any nice man would."

"If _I_ were nice----"

"You _are_ nice."

"You don't know, my child; you don't know."

"Do you suppose Robert doesn't know?"

Mrs. Tailleur rose suddenly and turned away.

"I was nice once," she said, "and at times I can be now."

CHAPTER XI

Colonel Hankin was mistaken. Mrs. Tailleur's room was not wanted the
next day. The point had been fiercely disputed in those obscure quarters
of the hotel inhabited by the management. The manager's wife was for
turning Mrs. Tailleur out on the bare suspicion of her impropriety. The
idea in the head of the manager's wife was that there should be no
suspicion as to the reputation of the Cliff Hotel. The manager, on his
side, contended that the Cliff Hotel must not acquire a reputation for
suspicion; that any lady whom Miss Lucy had made visibly her friend was
herself in the position so desirable for the Cliff Hotel; that, in any
case, unless Mrs. Tailleur's conduct became such as to justify an
extreme step, the scandal of the ejection would be more damaging to the
Cliff Hotel than her present transparently innocent and peaceful
occupation of the best r