He shrank back.

“Don’t!  I have done all I could!”

“All you could!” she repeated, scornfully.  “You drew a diagram of your duty, and you have moved like a machine along the lines.  You talk like a Pharisee, Lawrence!  Come!  You knew me years ago!  Do you find me changed?  Tell me the truth.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “you are changed.”

She nodded.

“You admit that.  Perhaps, perhaps,” she continued more slowly, “there are things about me now of which you don’t approve.  My friends are a little fast, I go out alone, I daresay people have said things.  There, you see I am very frank.  I mean to be!  I mean you to know that whatever I am, the fault is yours.”

“You are as God or the Devil made you,” he answered, hardly.  “You are what you would have become, in any case.”

“Lawrence!”

Already he hated the memory of his words.  True or not, they were spoken to a woman who was cowering under them as under a lash.  He was at a disadvantage now.  If she had met him with anger they might have cried quits.  But he had seen her wince, seen her sudden pallor, and it was not a pleasant sight.

“Forgive me,” he said.  “I do not know quite what I am saying.  You have broken a compact which I had hoped might have lasted all our days.  Let us be better friends, if you will, but let us keep that promise which we made to one another.”

“It was so many years ago,” she said, in a low tone.  “I am afraid to think how many.  It makes me lonely, Lawrence, to look ahead.  I am afraid of growing old!”

He looked at her steadily.  Yes, the signs were there.  She was a good-looking woman to-day, a handsome woman in some lights, but she had reached the limit.  It was a matter of a few years at most, and then—­He stood with his hands behind his back.

“It is a fear which we must all share,” he said, quietly.  “The only antidote is work.”

“Work!” she repeated, scornfully.  “That is the man’s resource.  What about us?  What about me?”

“It is no matter of sex,” he declared.  “We all make our own choice.  We are what we make of ourselves.”

“It is not true,” she answered, bluntly.  “Not with us, at any rate.  We are what our menkind make of us.  Oh, what cowards you all are.”

“Cowards?”

“Yes.  You do what mischief you choose, and then soothe your conscience with platitudes.  You will take hold of pleasure with both hands, but your shoulders are not broad enough for the pack of responsibility.  Don’t look at me as though I were a mile off, Lawrence, as though this were simply an impersonal discussion.  I am speaking to you—­of you.  You avoid me whenever you can.  I don’t often get a chance of speaking to you.  You shall listen now.  You live the life of a poet and a scholar, they tell me.  You live in a beautiful home, you take care that nothing ugly or disturbing shall come near you.  You are pleased with it,