“Why do you ask me this?” he demanded at last.  “What has that to do with us?  That was long ago.  It is dead, it is forgotten.  Why rake up the folly of a deed of youth and recklessness, long years dead and gone?  Why, the other man, and the woman herself, are dead and gone now, both of them.  Then, why?”

“I will tell you why.  That happened once in my own experience.”

“Impossible!”

“Yes, impossible.  It should have been impossible among men at this day of the world.  But it happened.  I also had the distinguished honor to be the stake in some such game, and that because—­indirectly because—­I had won the enmity, the suspicions at least—­well, we will say, of persons high in authority in this land.”

“But, my dear young lady, the conditions can not have been the same.  Assuredly the result was not the same!”

“By whose credit, then?  Who thinks of a woman?  Who is there whose hand is not raised against her?  Each member of her own sex is her enemy.  Each member of the opposite sex is her foe.  One breath, one suspicion, and she becomes fair game, even under the strictest code among men; and then, the man who did not dare would be despised because he would not dare.  Her life is one long war against suspicion.  It is one long war against selfishness, a continued defense against desire, gratification.  She is, even to-day, valued as chattel—­under all the laws and conventions built about her runs the chattel idea.  She is a convenience.  Is that all?”

“My dear lady, it is not for me to enter into discussion of subjects so abstruse, so far removed at least from my proper trend of thought—­our proper trend of thought, if you please.  I must admit that act of folly, yes.  But I must also end the matter there.”

“Then why should not I end our matter there, Sir?  It seems to me that if in any usual way of life, going about her business honestly, paying her obligations of all sort—­even that to her crucifix at night—­a woman who is clean wishes to remain clean, to be herself,—­why, I say, if that may not be, among men great or small, distinguished or unknown, then most fortunate is she who remains aloof from all chance of that sort of thing.  Sir, I should not like to think that, while I was in my room, for the time removed from the society of the gentlemen who should be my protectors, there was going on, let us say, somewhere in the gentlemen’s saloon, a little enterprise at chance in which—­”

“But, my dear lady, you are mad to speak in this way!  Lightning, even lightning of folly, does not strike twice in the same place.”

“Ah, does it not?  But it has!”

“What can you mean?  Surely you do not mean actually to say that you yourself ever have figured in such an incident?”

She made no answer to him, save to look straight into his eyes, chin in hand still, her long white arm lying out, motionless, her posture free of nervous strain or unrest.  Slowly her lips parted, showing her fine white teeth in a half smile.  Her eyes smiled also, with wisdom in their look.