“Is it that you don’t like to live on his money, Guthrie?”

“I should not like to live on it—­decidedly not.  But the fact is, I haven’t given the money a thought.”  “Then why—­why are you like this?”

“I’ll tell you, Francie—­I’ll tell you plainly.  It seems infernally brutal—­but I’m sure you know I wouldn’t say a thing to hurt you if I could help it.”

“Oh, go on!”

There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all firelight in her eyes.

“It is this, dear—­don’t try to take your hands away, I am going to keep them; I must have you listen to me till I’ve quite done—­it is this, Francie:  Love, as we very well know—­I mean our sort of love—­ is one thing, and marriage another—­”

“What?  Oh, is that it?  Ah, ah!  I see now.”

“Take your own case,” said he, with a relentless air.  “Haven’t you proved it up to the hilt?”

“Proved what?”

“That marriage is a failure.”

“Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know a thing about it.  That is not saying it would be a failure now.”

“It would be a dead failure, Francie.  I am absolutely convinced of it.”

“Because you have grown tired of me!  Because somebody else has got hold of you behind my back!  Because—­oh, because you men are all alike, thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman’s life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the useless skin—­without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless, treacherous—­”

“Hush, Francie!  Don’t talk rubbish.  I may be like other men—­I’ve no doubt I am—­but I’m not all that.  When I make an engagement, I keep it.  When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best to fulfil them.  Most men do—­decent men; but they never have justice done them in these cases.”

“In these cases!” she echoed scornfully.  “Everybody knows what their conduct is in these cases.  The world is well used to it.  Oh, I ought to have known—­if I hadn’t been the most incredible fool!  It was not for want of warnings.  But you seemed so different!  The idea that you could play with a woman in this way—­compromise her—­change all her life, and spoil it utterly—­and then back out!  Oh! oh!  Can you sit there and tell me that you have incurred no responsibility in your dealings with me, Guthrie—­making me love you as I did—­making me a bad woman—­ unfaithful to my good husband—­the most honourable, the most trustful of men—­”

“Did I do that?  Honour bright now, Francie.”

“Oh, this is too much!” she burst out furiously, springing from her seat, and being dragged back by his iron grasp of her hands.  “Let me go, sir!  I have had insults enough—­and in my own house—­with no husband to protect me—­”

“Sit down,” he commanded.  “And for God’s sake don’t—­don’t go on like that!  I can’t stand it.  I am not insulting you, dear—­not wilfully insulting you—­not more than I am forced to.  I only want us both to understand the case as it is; surely you and I are not afraid to speak out—­to face the truth?  You are not crying, Francie?”