What could she do?

She did nothing.

She made no effort to save herself.

If he had put his arms about her and had carried her away from her husband’s house to the uttermost ends of the earth, she would not have resisted.  It was not in her power to resist.

And it was because he saw this he went away, leaving her standing with that lovely Venetian mirror glittering in silver and ruby and emerald just above her head.

“You have been right; I have been wrong,” said he.  “Don’t try to speak, Ella.  Don’t try to keep me.  I know how you love me, and I know that if I ask you to keep me you will keep me until you die.  Forgive me for my selfishness, my beloved.  Good-by.”

She felt him approach her and she felt the hands that he laid upon her bare shoulders—­one on each side of her neck.  She closed her eyes as he put his face down to hers and kissed her on the mouth—­not with rapturous, passionate lips, but still with warm and trembling lips.  She did not know where the kiss ended, she did not know when his hands were taken off her shoulders.  She kept her eyes closed and her mouth sealed.  She did not even give him a farewell kiss.

When she opened her eyes she found herself alone in the room.

And then there came to her ears the sound of the double whistle for a hansom.  She stood silently there listening to the driving up of the vehicle—­she even heard the sound of the closing of the apron and then the tinkling of the horse’s bells dwindling into the distance.

A sense of loneliness came to her that was overwhelming in its force.

“Fool! fool! fool!” she cried, through her set teeth.  “What have I done?  Sent him away?  Sent him away?  My beloved!—­my best beloved—­my man of men.  Gone—­gone!  Oh, fool! fool!”

She threw herself on a sofa and stared at the Watteau group of masquerading shepherds and shepherdesses on the great Sevres vase that stood on a pedestal near her.  The masks at the joining of the handles were of grinning satyrs.  They were leering at her, she thought.  They alone were aware of the good reason there was for satyrs to grin.  A woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the world—­those were Phyllis’ words—­a king of men—­the one man who loved her and whom she loved.  She had pretended to him that she was subject to the influences of religion, of honor, of duty!  What hypocrisy!  They knew it, those leering creatures—­they knew that she cared nothing for religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when such words as love and devotion were in the air.

She looked at the satyr masks, and had anyone been present in the room, that one would have seen that her lovely face became gradually distorted until the expression it wore was precisely the same as that upon the masks—­an expression that had its audible equivalent in the laugh which broke from her.