“It is late—­too late for you to be out in the streets alone,” he answered quietly.

Claire laughed.  “You forget I’m not a society girl.  I’m a girl who works for her living.  I can’t carry a chaperon about with me wherever I go.  I must take care of myself, and—­I know how to do it.  I’m not afraid.”

“I believe you.”

“Then—­good-night!”

“I intend to see you home.”

“I don’t need you.”

“Nevertheless, I intend to see you home.”

“I don’t—­want you.”

“Notwithstanding which—­”

He hailed a passing motor-taxi, gave the chauffeur Martha’s street and number, after he had succeeded in extracting them from Claire, and then, in spite of protests, helped her in.

For a long time she sat beside him in silence, trying to quell in herself a weak inclination to shed tears, because—­because he had compelled her to do something against her will.

He did not attempt any conversation, and when, at last, she spoke, it was of her own accord.

“I’ve decided to resign my position.”

“Is it permitted me to know why?”

“I can’t stay.”

“That is no explanation.”

“I don’t feel I can manage Radcliffe.”

“Pardon me, you know you can.  You have proved it.  He is your bond-slave, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer.”

Claire laughed, a sharp, cutting little laugh that was like a keen knife turned on herself.

“O, it would have to be for poorer—­’all right, all right,’ as Martha says,” she cried scornfully.  “But it has been too hard—­to-day.  I can’t endure any more.”

“You won’t have to.  Radcliffe is conquered, so far as you are concerned.  ’Twill be plain sailing, after this.”

“I’d rather do something else.  I’d like something different.”

“I did not think you were a quitter.”

“I’m not.”

“O, yes, you are, if you give up before the game is done.  No good sport does that.”

“I’ve no ambition to be a good sport.”

“Perhaps not.  But you are a good sport.  A thorough good sport. And you won’t give up till you’ve seen this thing through.”

“Is that a prediction, or a—­command?  It sounds like a command.”

“It is whatever will hold you to the business you’ve undertaken.  I want you to conquer the rest, as you’ve conquered Radcliffe.”

“The rest?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by the rest?”

“I mean circumstances.  I mean obstacles.  I mean, my mother—­my sister.”

“I don’t—­understand.”

“Perhaps not.”

“And suppose (forgive me if I seem rude), suppose I don’t consider the rest worth conquering?  Why should I?  What one has to strive so for—­”

“Is worth the most.  One has to strive for everything in this world, everything that is really worth while.  One has to strive to get it, one has to strive to keep it.”