“But you’ll stick it out, Fred. You’ve made a fool of yourself long enough.  What was the girl playing for?  Marriage?”

He nodded.  “I guess so.”  He laughed curtly.  “And she almost won.”

Ursula smiled with fine mockery.  “Almost, but not quite.  I know you men.  Women do that sort of fool thing.  But men—­never—­at least not the ambitious, snobbish New York men.”

“She almost won,” he repeated.  “At least, I almost did it.  If I had stayed a minute longer I’d have done it.”

“You like to think you would,” mocked Ursula.  “But if you had tried to say the words your lungs would have collapsed, your vocal chords snapped and your tongue shriveled.”

“I am not so damn sure I shan’t do it yet,” he burst out fiercely.

“But I am,” said Ursula, calm, brisk, practical.  “What’s she going to do?”

“Going to work.”

Ursula laughed joyously.  “What a joke!  A woman go to work when she needn’t!”

“She is going to work.”

“To work another man.”

“She meant it.”

“How easily women fool men!—­even the wise men like you.”

“She meant it.”

“She still hopes to marry you—­or she has heard of your marriage——­”

Norman lifted his head.  Into his face came the cynical, suspicious expression.

“And has fastened on some other man.  Or perhaps she’s found some good provider who’s willing to marry her.”

Norman sprang up, his eyes blazing, his mouth working cruelly.  “By God!” he cried.  “If I thought that!”

His sister was alarmed.  Such a man—­in such a delirium—­might commit any absurdity.  He flung himself down in despair.  “Urse, why can’t I get rid of this thing?  It’s ruining me.  It’s killing me!”

“Your good sense tells you if you had her you’d be over it—­” She snapped her fingers—­“like that.”

“Yes—­yes—­I know it!  But—­” He groaned—­“she has broken with me.”

Ursula went to him and kissed him and took his head in her arms.  “What a boy-boy it is!” she said tenderly.  “Oh, it must be dreadful to have always had whatever one wanted and then to find something one can’t have.  We women are used to it—­and the usual sort of man.  But not your sort, Freddy—­and I’m so sorry for you.”

“I want her, Urse—­I want her,” he groaned, and he was almost sobbing.  “My God, I can’t get on without her.”

“Now, Freddy dear, listen to me.  You know she’s ’way, ’way beneath you—­that she isn’t at all what you’ve got in the habit of picturing her—­that it’s all delusion and nonsense——­”

“I want her,” he repeated.  “I want her.”

“You’d be ashamed if you had her as a wife—­wouldn’t you?”

He was silent.

“She isn’t a lady.”

“I don’t know,” replied he.

“She hasn’t any sense.  A low sort of cunning, yes.  But not brains—­not enough to hold you.”