its his self-respect
if he spends a penny without her approval. But that's because money is
so sacred to you all! It seems to me the least important thing that a
woman entrusts to her husband. What of her dreams and her hopes, her
belief in justice and goodness and decency? If he takes those and
destroys them, he'd better have had a mill-stone about his neck. But
nobody has a word to say till he touches her dividends--then he's a
calculating brute who has married her for her fortune!"

He had come close again, facing her with outstretched hands,
half-commanding, half in appeal. "Don't you see that I can't go on in
this way--that I've _no right_ to let you keep me from Westmore?"

Bessy was looking at him coldly, under the half-dropped lids of
indifference. "I hardly know what you mean--you use such peculiar words;
but I don't see why you should expect me to give up all the ideas I was
brought up in. Our standards _are_ different--but why should yours
always be right?"

"You believed they were right when you married me--have they changed
since then?"

"No; but----" Her face seemed to harden and contract into a small
expressionless mask, in which he could no longer read anything but blank
opposition to his will.

"You trusted my judgment not long ago," he went on, "when I asked you to
give up seeing Mrs. Carbury----"

She flushed, but with anger, not compunction. "It seems to me that
should be a reason for your not asking me to make other sacrifices! When
I gave up Blanche I thought you would see that I wanted to please
you--and that you would do something for me in return...."

Amherst interrupted her with a laugh. "Thank you for telling me your
real reasons. I was fool enough to think you acted from conviction--not
that you were simply striking a bargain----"

He broke off, and they looked at each other with a kind of fear, each
hearing between them the echo of irreparable words. Amherst's only clear
feeling was that he must not speak again till he had beaten down the
horrible sensation in his breast--the rage of hate which had him in its
grip, and which made him almost afraid, while it lasted, to let his eyes
rest on the fair weak creature before him. Bessy, too, was in the clutch
of a mute anger which slowly poured its benumbing current around her
heart. Strong waves of passion did not quicken her vitality: she grew
inert and cold under their shock. Only one little pulse of self-pity
continued to beat in her