(He hated himself—­the beastly righteousness of his voice, his contemptible exultation.  It was as though he were under some horrid spell which twisted his love and anguish into the expressions of a spiteful prig.  Why couldn’t he tell her of those deadly, shapeless fears, of his loneliness, his sorrowful jealousies?  He was shut up in the iron fastness of his own will—­gagged and helpless.)

He saw her start.  She stopped definitely in her work as though she were at last aware of some struggle between them.  The room was growing dark, and she came a little nearer, trying to see his face.

“I don’t suppose so.  I don’t think it would occur to them.”

“No—­that’s what I should imagine.”

“You’re awfully hard on people, Robert.”

“That sort of thing makes me sick.  It ought to make you sick.  I don’t know why it doesn’t.  You don’t seem to care—­to have any standards.  You’re unmoral in your outlook—­perhaps you’re too young—­you don’t realize.  A rotter like Howard who takes other people’s money just to enjoy himself—­a girl like Gertie Sumners who goes off with the first man who asks her——­”

“You don’t understand, Robert.”

“No,” he said with a laugh, “I don’t.”

“Gertie Sumners hasn’t long to live.  I sent her to the hospital last week, and they told her honestly.  And she wanted so much to see Italy.  I don’t think Howard cares for her or she for him, except in a comradely sort of way.  They loved the same things—­and he was sorry—­he wanted to give her her one good time.”

“He told you all that, I suppose?”

“No,” she answered soberly.  “But I know.”

He waited a moment.  He was trying desperately to hold back—­to stop himself.  He was sorry about Gertie Sumners.  But everything was against him.  The room was against him—­the faun dancing noiselessly among the shadows, the little things that Francey had gathered about her, the dear personal things that can become terrible in their poignancy, Francey herself, standing there slender and grave-eyed, judging him, weighing him.  They were all leagued together.  They spoke with one voice.  “We belong TO one another.  We understand.  But you don’t belong.  You are outside.”

“I don’t see, at any rate,” he said, “what it has got to do with you—­or why you should be going away.”

“I’m going after them.  There’s no one else.  Howard will expect prosecution.  He will think that he’ll never be able to come home.  He’s pretty reckless, but they will be thinking of that all the time.  It will spoil everything for them.”

“And what can you do?”

“I can tell them it’s all right.”

“How can it be?”

“It is,” she said curtly.  “The money has been paid back.”

“Paid back!” Understanding burst upon him. “You paid it?”

He stood up.  He knew that resentment flickered in her—­a fine, dangerous resentment against him because he had dragged so simple and obvious a thing out of its insignificance.  But his own anger was like a mad, runaway horse, rushing him to destruction.