ETHEL [with a cry of rage and relief].  Oh!  That is the final word of my humiliation!  I felt that you were in shame and dishonor, and, because of that, I was ready to keep my word—­to stand by you, to help you make yourself into something like a man—­to give my life to you.  That you permitted the sacrifice was enough!  Now you ask me to PAY for the privilege of making it, I am released!  I am free! I am not that man’s property to give away!

LADY CREECH [violently].  You’re beside yourself.  Isn’t this what we’ve been wanting all the time?

ALMERIC.  But slow up a bit—­didn’t you say you’d stick?

ETHEL.  Any promise I ever made to you is a thousand times cancelled. 
This is final!

[With concentrated rage, turning to PIKE.]

And as for you—­never presume to speak to me again!

ALMERIC [to LADY CREECH].  Most extraordinary girl—­she’s rather dreadful, isn’t she?

LADY CREECH [with agitation].  Give me your arm, Almeric.

[They go into the hotel.]

ETHEL [to PIKE].  What have you to say to me?

[PIKE raises his hands slowly, with palms outward, and drops them.]

ETHEL.  What explanation have you to make?

PIKE.  None.

ETHEL.  That’s because you don’t care what I think of you. [Bitterly.] Indeed, you’ve already shown that, when you were willing to give me up to those people, and to let me pay them for taking me!  You let me romanticize to you about honor and duty and sympathy—­about my efforts to make that creature a man—­and you pretended to sympathize with me, and you knew all the time it was only the money they were after!

PIKE [humbly].  Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.

ETHEL.  Didn’t you have the faint little understanding of me enough to see that their asking for money, now—­would horrify me?  Didn’t you know that your consenting to it, leaving me free to give it to them, would release me—­make me free to deny everything to them?

PIKE [slowly].  Well, I shouldn’t be surprised if I had seen that.

ETHEL [staggered].  You mean you’ve been saving me again from myself, from my silliness, from my romanticism, that you’ve given me another revelation of the falsity, the unreality of my attitude toward these people, and toward life.

PIKE [placatingly].  No, no!

ETHEL [vehemently].  You’d always say that, you’d always deny it—­it’s like you.  You let me make a fool of myself and then you show it to me, and after that you deny it! [Angrily.] You’re always exhibiting your superiority!  Would you do that to the dream girl you told me of, to the girl at home who plays dream songs for you in the empty house among the beeches?  Do you think any girl could love a man for that?  Go back to your dream girl, your lady of the picture!

PIKE [disconsolately].  She won’t be there.

ETHEL [stubbornly].  She might be.