was willing to do so much for so little, for what
I wanted ought--if you are a sensible woman--to seem to you a trifle in
comparison with what I was doing for you. It was my part, not yours,
to think the complimentary things about you. How shallow and vain you
women are! Can't you see that the value of your charms is not in them,
but in the imagination of some man?"

"I can't answer you," said she. "You've put it all wrong. You
oughtn't to ask payment for a favor beyond price."

"No, I oughtn't to HAVE to ask," corrected he, in the same pleasantly
ironic way. "You ought to have been more than glad to give freely.
But, curiously, while we've been talking, I've changed my mind about
those precious jewels of yours. We'll say they're pearls, and that my
taste has suddenly changed to diamonds." He bowed mockingly. "So,
dear lady, keep your pearls."

And he stood aside, opening the door for her. She hesitated, dazed
that she was leaving, with the feeling of the conquered, a field on
which, by all the precedents, she ought to have been victor. She
passed a troubled night, debated whether to relate her queer experience
to Mrs. Belloc, decided for silence. It drafted into service all her
reserve of courage to walk into the theater the next day and to appear
on the stage among the assembled company with her usual air. Ransdell
greeted her with his customary friendly courtesy and gave her his
attention, as always. By the time they had got through the first act,
in which her part was one of four of about equal importance, she had
recovered herself and was in the way to forget the strange stage
director's strange attack and even stranger retreat. But the situation
changed with the second act, in which she was on the stage all the time
and had the whole burden. The act as originally written had been less
generous to her; but Ransdell had taken one thing after another away
from the others and had given it to her. She made her first entrance
precisely as he had trained her to make it and began. A few seconds,
and he stopped her.

"Please try again, Miss Gower," said he. "I'm afraid that won't do."

She tried again; again he stopped her. She tried a third time. His
manner was all courtesy and consideration, not the shade of a change.
But she began to feel a latent hostility. Instinctively she knew that
he would no longer help her, that he would leave her to her own
resources, and judge her by how she acquitte