what in her child’s vocabulary she called “good,” or if not that he must at least see good and bad with clear eyes:  sins one can pardon, but the idea of any essential inferiority of taste was torture to her.  And meanwhile Lawrence wide of the mark began to coax her. .  “My own,” his arm stole inside her coat again, “there’s nothing to get so red about!  Come, you do like me—­confess now—­you like me better than Val?”

“No, no,” Isabel murmured, and slowly, though she had not strength to free herself, she turned her head away.  “If you kiss me now I never shall forgive you.”

“I won’t, but why are you so shy?  My Isabel, what is there to be afraid of?”

“You,” Isabel sighed out.  He was gratified, and betrayed it.  “No, Lawrence, you misunderstand.  I am not—­not shy of you . . .”  Under his mocking eyes she gave it up and tried again.  “Well, I am, but if that were all I shouldn’t refuse . . .  I should like you to be happy.  Oh! yes, I love you, and I’d so far rather not fight, I’d rather—­” she waited a moment like a swimmer on the sand’s edge, but his deep need of her carried her away and with a little sigh she flung herself into the open sea—­“let you kiss me, because I don’t want anything so much as to make you happy, and I believe you would be, and besides I—­I should like it myself.  But I must know more.  I must know the truth.  She—­Mrs. Cleve—­”

“I’ve already given you my word:  do you think I would lie to you?”

“No, I don’t; they say men do, but I’m sure you wouldn’t.  I don’t believe you ever would deceive me.  But there have been other women, haven’t there, since your wife left you?” Lawrence assented briefly.  At that moment he would have liked to see Mrs. Cleve hanged and drawn and quartered.  “Other women who were—­ who—­with whom—­”

“Must you distress yourself like this?  Wouldn’t it do if I promised to lay my record before Val, and let him be judge?”

“Would you do that?”

“If you wish it.”

“Wouldn’t you hate it?”

Lawrence smiled.

“And I should hate it for you,”, said Isabel.  “No:  no one can judge you for me and no one shall try.  I know you better than Val ever would.  No, if you’re to be humiliated it shall be before me and me only.”  She brought the colour into his face.  “There have been others, Lawrence?”

“My dear, I’ve lived the life of other men.”

“Do all men live so?”

“Pretty well all.”

“Does Val?”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “His facilities are limited!”

“He did once—­might again?”

“Couldn’t we confine the issue to ourselves?”

“Are you afraid of my misjudging Val?  I never should:  my dearest darling Val is a fixed standard for me, and nothing could alter the way I think of him.”

“Don’t challenge luck,” Lawrence muttered.

“I’m not, it’s true.  I’m surer of Val than I am of myself, or you, or the sun’s rising tomorrow.  All I want is to cheek you by him.”