somebody to support him
indefinitely so that later, in France, he could in turn support his
mistresses in the style to which they earnestly desired to become
accustomed.

And now the American girl who had been a countess was back, a little
wiser, a little harder, and more cynical, with some of the bloom rubbed
off, yet much of her superficial beauty remaining.

"Alida Ascott," murmured Shiela. "Jessie was a bridesmaid. Poor little
girl!--I'm glad she's free. There were no children," she said, looking
up at Hamil; "in that case a decent girl is justified! Don't you think
so?"

"Yes, I do," he said, smiling; "I'm not one of those who believe that
such separations threaten us with social disintegration."

"Nor I. Almost every normal woman desires to live decently. She has a
right to. All young girls are ignorant. If they begin with a dreadful
but innocent mistake does the safety of society require of them the
horror of lifelong degradation? Then the safety of such a society is not
worth the sacrifice. That is my opinion."

"That settles a long-vexed problem," he said, laughing at her
earnestness.

But she looked at him, unsmiling, while he spoke, hands clasped in her
lap, the fingers twisting and tightening till the rose-tinted nails
whitened.

* * * * *

Men have only a vague idea of women's ignorance; how naturally they are
inclined to respond to a man; how the dominating egotism of a man and
his confident professions and his demands confuse them; how deeply his
appeals for his own happiness stir them to pity.... They have heard of
love--and they do not know. If they ever dream of it it is not what they
have imagined when a man suddenly comes crashing through the barriers of
friendship and stuns them with an incoherent recital of his own desires.
And yet, in spite of the shock, it is with them instinctive to be kind.
No woman can endure an appeal unmoved; except for them there would be no
beggars; their charity is not a creed: it is the essence of them, the
beginning of all things for them--and the end.

* * * * *

The bantering smile had died out in Hamil's face; he sat very still,
interested, disturbed, and then wondering when his eyes caught the
restless manoeuvres of the little hands, constantly in motion,
interlacing, eloquent of the tension of self-suppression.

* * * * *

He thought: "It is a cowardly thin