“You spoiled me,” she went on.  “Those few months over there in Jersey City.  It made such a change in me, though I didn’t realize it at the time.  You see, I hadn’t known since I was a tiny little girl what it was to live really decently, and so I was able to get along quite contentedly.  I didn’t know any better.”  She made a wry face.  “How I loathe the canned and cold storage stuff I have to eat nowadays.  And how I do miss the beautiful room I had in that big house over there! and how I miss Molly and Pat—­and the garden—­and doing as I pleased—­and the clothes I had:  I thought I was being careful and not spoiling myself.  You may not believe it, but I was really conscientious about spending money.”  She laughed in a queer, absent way.  “I had such a funny idea of what I had a right to do and what I hadn’t.  And I didn’t spend so very much on out-and-out luxury.  But—­enough to spoil me for this life.”

As Norman listened, as he noted—­in her appearance, manner, way of talking—­the many meaning signs of the girl hesitating at the fork of the roads—­he felt within him the twinges of fear, of jealousy—­and through fear and jealousy, the twinges of conscience.  She was telling the truth.  He had undermined her ability to live in purity the life to which her earning power assigned her. . . . Why had she been so friendly to him?  Why had she received him in this informal, almost if not quite inviting fashion?

“So you think I’ve changed?” she was saying.  “Well—­I have.  Gracious, what a little fool I was!”

His eyes lifted with an agonized question in them.

She flushed, glanced away, glanced at him again with the old, sweet expression of childlike innocence which had so often made him wonder whether it was merely a mannerism, or was a trick, or was indeed a beam from a pure soul.  “I’m foolish still—­in certain ways,” she said significantly.

“And you always intend to be?” suggested he with a forced smile.

“Oh—­yes,” replied she—­positively enough, yet it somehow had not the full force of her simple short statements in the former days.

He believed her.  Perhaps because he wished to believe, must believe, would have been driven quite mad by disbelief.  Still, he believed.  As yet she was good.  But it would not last much longer.  With him—­or with some other.  If with him, then certainly afterward with another—­with others.  No matter how jealously he might guard her, she would go that road, if once she entered it.  If he would have her for his very own he must strengthen her, not weaken her, must keep her “foolish still—­in certain ways.”

He said:  “There’s nothing in the other sort of life.”

“That’s what they say,” replied she, with ominous irritation.  “Still—­some girls—­lots of girls seem to get on mighty well without being so terribly particular.”

“You ought to see them after a few years.”

“I’m only twenty-one,” laughed she.  “I’ve got lots of time before I’m old. . . .  You haven’t—­married?”