Clark Street; that I thought I was doing something worth doing; something that was making me more nearly a person you could respect and be friends with.  And, from what you’ve said just now, it seems as if you couldn’t believe even that I was a person with any decent self-respect.  The notion that I could blackmail your family into lending me their name and social position to get me a better job on the stage than I could earn!  Or the notion that I could come back to your house and pretend to be your wife without even ...!”

The old possibility of frank talk between them was gone.  She couldn’t complete the sentence.

“So I guess,” she concluded after a silence, “that the only thing for you to do is to go home and forget about me as well as you can and be as little miserable about me as possible.  I’ll tell you this, that may make it a little easier:  you’re not to think of me as starving or miserable, or even uncomfortable for want of money.  I’m earning plenty to live on, and I’ve got over two hundred dollars in the bank.  So, on that score at least, you needn’t worry.”

There was a long silence while he sat there twisting the newspaper in his hands, his eyes downcast, his face dull with the look of defeat that had settled over it.

In the security of his averted gaze, she took a long look at him.  Then, with a wrench, she looked away.

“You will let me go now, won’t you?” she asked.  “This is—­hard for us both, and it isn’t getting us anywhere.  And—­and I’ve got to ask you not to come back.  Because it’s impossible, I guess, for you to see the thing my way.  You’ve done your best to, I can see that.”

He got up out of his chair, heavily, tiredly; put on his raincoat and stood, for a moment, crumpling his soft hat in his hands, looking down at her.  She hadn’t risen.  She’d gone limp all at once, and was leaning over the table.

“Good-by,” he said at last.

She said, “Good-by, Roddy,” and watched him walking across the lobby and out into the rain.  He’d left his newspaper.  She took it, gripped it in both hands, just as he’d done, then, with an effort, got up and mounted the stairs to her room.  Dolly, fortunately, had gone out.

The violent struggle she had had to make during the last few moments in her effort to retain her self-control, had pretty well exhausted her.  Only, had it been self-control, after all?  That question shook her.  Had she meant to be merciless to him like that; to send him away utterly discouraged in his sad humility, when the touch of an outreached hand would have changed the whole face of the world for him?  Had she really been as noble as she felt while she was defending the impregnable righteousness of her position and so completely demolishing his?

She remembered a day when he had been beaten in a law-suit, and she had waited for him to come to her in his discouragement for help and comfort.  It was thus he had come to her to-day.  How helpless he was!  What a boy he was!