her lips.

"Listen, Philip," she said. "I started life with the usual quiverful of
good qualities, but there's one I've lost, and I don't want it back
again. I'm a selfish woman, and I mean to stay a selfish woman. I am
going to live for myself. I've paid a fair price, and I'm going to have
what I've paid for. See?"

"Do you think," he asked, "that it is possible to make that sort of
bargain with one's self and fate?"

She laughed scornfully.

"There's room for a little stiffening in you, even now, Philip! No one
but a weakling ever talks about fate. You'd think better of me, I
suppose, if I stayed in my room and wept. Well, I could do it if I let
myself, but I won't. I should lose several hours of the life that belongs
to me. You think I didn't care about Douglas? I am not at all sure that I
didn't care for him as much as I ever did for you, although, of course,
he wasn't worthy of it. But he's gone, and all the shudders and morbid
regrets in the world won't bring him back again. And I am here in New
York, and to-morrow I shall have twenty thousand pounds, and to-night I
am with you, watching your play. That's life enough for me at present--no
more, no less. I hate missing the first act, and I'm coming to see it
again to-morrow. What time is it over?"

"Soon after eleven," he told her.

She glanced at her watch.

"You shall take me out and give me some supper," she decided, "somewhere
where there's music."

He made no remark, but she surprised again something in his face which
irritated her.

"Look here, Philip," she said firmly, "I won't have you look at me as
though I were something inhuman. There are plenty of other women like me
in the world, even if they are not quite so frank about it. I want to
live, and I will live, and I grudge every moment out of which I am not
extracting the fullest amount of happiness. That's because I've paid.
It's the woman's bargaining instinct, you know. She wants to get
value.... Now I want to hear about Miss Dalstan. Where did you meet her,
and how did you get her to accept your play?"

"She was on the _Elletania_," he explained. "We crossed from Liverpool
together. She sat at my table."

"How much does she know about you?" Beatrice asked bluntly.

"Everything," he confessed. "I don't know what I should have done without
her. She has been the most wonderful friend any one could have."

Beatrice looked at him a little critically.

"You're a queer person, Philip," she