ault.'"

There was a silence. In it he looked at her hard, mercilessly. She
returned his gaze, still smiling.

"And it is your own fault," he went on after a moment. "If you had
been yourself she couldn't have insulted you first and humiliated you
afterwards. Oh, how I hate it! And yet--yet there are moments when I am
like the others, when I feel--'She has deserved it.'"

"When will you be in Rome?" she said.

"And even now," he continued, ignoring her remark, "even now, what are
you doing? Oh, Viola, you're a prey to the modern madness for crawling
in the dirt instead of walking upright in the sun. You might be a
goddess and you prefer to be an insect. Isn't it mad of you? Isn't it?"

He was really excited, really passionate. His face showed that. There
was fire in his eyes. His lips worked convulsively when he was not
speaking. And yet there was just a faint ring of the accomplished
orator's music in his voice, a music which suggests a listening ear--and
that ear the orator's own.

Perhaps she heard it. At any rate his passionate attack did not seem to
move her.

"I prefer to be what I am," was all she said.

"What you are! But you don't know what you are."

"And how can you pretend to know?" she asked. "Is a man more subtle
about a woman than she is about herself?"

He did not answer for a moment. Then he said bluntly:

"Promise me one thing before I go away."

"I don't know. What is it?"

"Promise me not to--not to--"

He hesitated. The calm of her face seemed almost to confuse him.

"Well?" she said. "Go on."

"Promise me not to justify anything people are saying, not to justify it
with--with that fellow Ulford."

"Good-bye," she answered, holding out her hand.

He recognised that the time for his advice had gone by, if it had ever
been.

"What a way--what a way for us to--" he almost stammered.

He recovered his self-possession with an effort and took her hand.

"At least," he said in a low, quiet voice, "believe it is less jealousy
that speaks within me than love--love for you, for the woman you are
trampling in the dust."

He looked into her eyes and went out. She did not see him again before
he left England. And she was glad. She did not want to see him. Perhaps
it was the first time in her life that the affection of a man whom she
really liked was distasteful to her. It made her uneasy, doubtful of
herself just then, to be loved as Robin loved her.

Carey had come back to town, bu