“But women—­women are not like men.  When once they give themselves they do not so easily cease to love.  They—­they suffer.”

He did not seem to observe the bitterness in her voice.

“Ah, that is sentiment,” he declared, “something that will not trouble women when they have work to do, inspiring work.  It takes time to change our ideas, to learn to see things as they are.”  He leaned forward eagerly.  “But you will learn, you are like some of those rare women in history who have had the courage to cast off traditions.  You were not made to be a drudge....”

But now her own words, not his, were ringing in her head—­women do not so easily cease to love, they suffer.  In spite of the new creed she had so eagerly and fiercely embraced, in which she had sought deliverance and retribution, did she still love Ditmar, and suffer because of him?  She repudiated the suggestion, yet it persisted as she glanced at Rolfe’s red lips and compared him with Ditmar.  Love!  Rolfe might call it what he would—­the life-force, attraction between the sexes, but it was proving stronger than causes and beliefs.  He too was making love to her; like Ditmar, he wanted her to use and fling away when he should grow weary.  Was he not pleading for himself rather than for the human cause he professed? taking advantage of her ignorance and desperation, of her craving for new experience and knowledge?  The suspicion sickened her.  Were all men like that?  Suddenly, without apparent premeditation or connection, the thought of the stranger from Silliston entered her mind.  Was he like that?...  Rolfe was bending toward her across the table, solicitously.  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Her reply was listless.

“Nothing—­except that I’m tired.  I want to go home.”

“Not now,” he begged.  “It’s early yet.”

But she insisted....

CHAPTER XVII

The next day at the noon hour Janet entered Dey Street.  Cheek by jowl there with the tall tenements whose spindled-pillared porches overhung the darkened pavements were smaller houses of all ages and descriptions, their lower floors altered to accommodate shops; while in the very midst of the block stood a queer wooden building with two rows of dormer windows let into its high-pitched roof.  It bore a curious resemblance to a town hall in the low countries.  In front of it the street was filled with children gazing up at the doorway where a man stood surveying them —­the stranger from Silliston.  There was a rush toward him, a rush that drove Janet against the wall almost at his side, and he held up his hands in mock despair, gently impeding the little bodies that strove to enter.  He bent over them to examine the numerals, printed on pasteboard, they wore on their breasts.  His voice was cheerful, yet compassionate.

“It’s hard to wait, I know.  I’m hungry myself,” he said.  “But we can’t all go up at once.  The building would fall down!  One to one hundred now, and the second hundred will be first for supper.  That’s fair, isn’t it?”