, an eager light in her eyes.
"No, never, Dr. Thorpe. He has never spoken to me, never written a line to
me. That's fine of him too. He loves me, I'm sure of it, and he wants me,
but it _is_ fine of him not to bother me, now isn't it? He knows he could
drag me back into the muddle, he knows he could make a fool of me, and yet
he will not take that advantage of me."

"Would you go back to him if he asked you to do so?"

"I suppose so," she sighed. Then brightly: "So, you see, I shall refuse to
see him if he ever comes to plead. That's the only way. We must go our
separate ways, as decreed. I am his wife but I must not so far forget
myself as to think that he is my husband. I know, Dr. Thorpe, that if we
had been left alone, we could have managed somehow. He was young, but so
was I. I am not quite impossible, am I? Don't these friends of yours like
me, don't they find something worth while in me? If I were as common, as
undesirable as Mrs. Tresslyn would have me to be, why do people of your
kind like me,--take me up, as the saying is? I know that I don't really
belong, I know I'm not just what they are, but I'm not so awfully
hopeless, now am I? Isn't Mrs. Fenn a nice woman? Doesn't she go about in
the smart set?"

She appeared to be pleading with him. He smiled.

"Mrs. Fenn is a very nice woman and a very smart one," he said. "You have
many exceedingly nice women among your friends. So be of good cheer, if
that signifies anything to you." He was chaffing her in his most amiable
way.

"It signifies a lot," she said seriously. "By rights, I suppose, I should
have gone to the devil. That's what was expected of me, you know. When I
took all that money from Mrs. Tresslyn, it wasn't for the purpose of
beating my way to the devil as fast as I could. I took it for an entirely
different reason: to put myself where I could tell other people to go to
him if I felt so inclined. I took it so that I could make of myself, if
possible, the sort of woman that George Tresslyn might have married
without stirring up a row in the family. I've taken good care of all that
money. It is well invested. I manage to live and dress on the income.
Rather decent of me, isn't it? Surprisingly decent, you might say, eh?"

"Surprisingly," he agreed, smiling.

"What George Tresslyn needs, Dr. Thorpe, is something to work for,
something to make work an object to him. What has he got to work for now?
Nothing, absolutely nothing. He's merely keeping u