“You ought to hate me then,” he said.

“Why?  If I don’t hate them?”

“Don’t you hate your enemies?” asked Armine.

“No; that’s a weakness in me.  I never could and never shall.  Something silly inside of me invariably finds excuses for people, whatever they are or do.  I’m always saying to myself, ’They don’t understand.  If they really knew all the circumstances, they wouldn’t hate me.  Perhaps they’d even pity me.’  Absurd!  A mistake!  I know that.  Such feelings stand in the way of success, because they prevent one striking out in one’s own defence.  And if one doesn’t strike out for oneself, nobody will strike out for one.”

“I don’t think that’s quite true,” Armine said.

“Oh, yes, it is.  If you’re pugnacious, people think you’re plucky, and they’re ready to stand up for you.  Whereas, if you forgive easily, you’re not easily forgiven.”

“If that is so,” Armine said, “why don’t you change your tactics?”

As he said this, he glanced at Isaacson, and the Doctor understood that he was seeking to display to his friend what he believed to be this woman’s character.

“Simply because I can’t.  I am what I am.  I can’t change myself, and I can’t act in defiance of the little interior voice.  I often try to, for I don’t pretend in the least to be virtuous; but I have to give in.  I know it’s weakness.  I know the world would laugh at it.  But—­que voulez-vous?—­some of us are the slaves of our souls.”

The last sentence seemed almost to be blurted out, so honestly was it said.  But instantly, as if regretting a sincere indiscretion, she added: 

“Doctor Isaacson, what an idiot you must think me!”

“Why, Mrs. Chepstow?”

“For saying that.  You, of course, think we are the slaves of our bodies.”

“I certainly do not think you an idiot,” he could not help saying, with significance.

“Isaacson is not an ordinary doctor,” said Armine.  “You needn’t be afraid of him.”

“I don’t think I’m afraid of anybody, but one doesn’t want to make oneself absurd.  And I believe I often am absurd in rating the body too low.  What a conversation!” she added, smiling.  “But, as I was all alone in the crowd, I was thinking of all sorts of things.  A crowd makes one think tremendously, if one is quite alone.  It stimulates the brain, I suppose.  So I was thinking a lot of rubbish over my solitary meal.”

She looked at the two men apologetically.

“La femme pense,” she said, and she shrugged her shoulders.

Armine drew his chair a little nearer to her, and this action suddenly made Doctor Isaacson realize the power that still dwelt in this woman, the power to govern certain types of men.

“And the man acts,” completed Armine.

“And the woman acts, too, and better than the man,” the Doctor thought to himself.

Again his admiration was stirred, this time by the sledge-hammer boldness of Mrs. Chepstow, by her complete though so secret defiance of himself.