he drew herself to her full height:

'I do not pretend to define loyalty,' she said; 'but I know it when I
see it. It may be less definite than insult; but the last, at least, is
clearly outlined. I have been mistaken, and I will correct my error now.
Good-bye, Mr. Armstrong.'

'Good-bye,' said Paul.

She lingered for a mere instant as if in expectation of some further
adieu, but he had none to offer. He saw no more clearly now into the
truth than he had done at the beginning of the interview, but he had in
a measure hardened himself by the spoken definition of his own attitude,
and, partly because he could not as yet retreat from it, he permitted
her to go without another word She floated away in the alternate soft
splendour of the moon and the deep shadow of the overhanging boughs, and
he watched her gloomily until her figure disappeared at the end of the
avenue. He stood for a minute or two with a vacant mind, digging his
walking-cane into the dry, friable earth at his feet, and scoring the
thin, scum-like growth of moss upon it with unmeaning lines. Then he lit
a cigar, and, avoiding the crowded vestibule, skirted the dark western
wall of the hotel, and so walked homeward. The thing was done now, and,
whether it were rightly done or wrongly he cared very little for the
moment He stood at one of those pauses of emotion in which the mind is
able logically to balance pros and cons without the intervention of any
gust of feeling. If Gertrude were really what she professed to be, he
had acted with great cruelty. If she were not what she professed to be,
he had acted with great wisdom for the first time in his life so far as
the woman as protagonist was concerned He looked at the probabilities on
both sides with a cynical coolness which would have been impossible to
him at any earlier stage in his career. He had met but two men who had
known the Baroness de Wyeth well, and they had both looked upon her from
pretty much the same standpoint. Ralston's view was the more genial, but
even in his opinion she was a born flirt, a creature who loved to tyre
her chariot-wheels with hearts; and in the view of the coarser mind she
was a coquette mere and simple--a Queen Rabesqurat, who kept a sackful
of the human eyes which had turned to her in adoration. Then, in spite
of momentary indifference, his nerves tingled and his blood sparkled at
the memory of that rare and fleeting instant at which she had seemed to
surrender herself to