“He thought that I,” her voice was hoarse and labored, “he thought that I was like those other women that he has picked up and got tired of and left, Selma Le Grand, and Fanny Estrel, and others.  I wonder where he thinks that I’ve been living that I wouldn’t know about them.  Fanny Estrel!  I went to see her once in vaudeville, and, before I’d hardly got my seat, someone next me began to whisper that she used to be one of Hanson’s head-liners and that he was crazy about her once.  And there she was, old, and fat and tired, playing in an ingenue sketch in a cheap house!” She laughed harshly.  “That’s what he was offering me,” with a flare of passion, “and I was too green to know it!”

“And he, where is he?” asked her father, speaking more quickly than was his wont and eyeing her closely.

“Out there, I suppose, I don’t care.  Oh, no,” meeting his eye and catching his unspoken question.  “He’s safe enough; don’t worry.”

“Shall I make him shoot, Pearl?” asked Flick softly.  “He won’t have much chance with me, you know.  I’ll get him in Pete’s place and pick a quarrel.  He’ll understand.  You won’t be in it.”

“No, you won’t, Bob, although I can see how you’re wanting to,” she said decisively.  “The Black Pearl!” she broke out presently.  “My name’s an awful good advertisement.  It gives me a reputation for being worse than I am.”  She laughed cynically.  “But he believed it.”  Her whole face darkened again.

“He needn’t go away believing it, Pearl.”  Once more Flick spoke softly, persuasively, and once more her father looked at her hopefully.

She looked quickly from one to the other as if about to accede, and then, dropping her head on her arms crossed on her knees, she fell into wild and tempestuous weeping.  “No,” she cried, “no, promise me you won’t, Bob.  Oh, Oh, Oh!” she wailed and rocked back and forth.  “What shall I do?  What shall I do?”

At last she lifted her heavy eyes and looked at the two men.  “I want to go away from here, quick,” she said, “quick.”

“With Sweeney,” said her father, well pleased.

“No.”  She threw out her hands as if putting the thought from her with abhorrence.  “No, I can’t dance and I won’t.  I never want to dance again.  I never will dance again,” passionately.

“But that is a feeling which will soon pass away, my daughter,” urged her father.

“No, no,” she wailed.  “And anyway, I would never be safe from Ru—­from him, that way.  He would follow me about and try to meet me.  He would.  I know he would.”

Gallito drew back and looked at her with uplifted head.  “Afraid!  You?” he asked in surprise.

“No,” she flashed at him scornfully, lifting her head, but again she dropped it brokenly on her arms.  “I’m afraid of myself,” she cried, suffering causing her to break down those barriers of self-repression which she usually erected between herself and everyone about her.  “I’m afraid of myself, because I love him.  Yes, I do.  I love him just as much as ever—­and I hate him, hate him, hate him.”  She hissed the words.  Once more she sobbed wildly and then she broke into speech again.  “Oh, I want to go somewhere and hide; somewhere where he’ll never find me, where I’ll be safe from him.”