"You mustn't think Mr. O'Farrell such a bad man. He is probably fond of her. In some respects he is a very good man. When I was--left, without a penny, he might have made terms with me. Some managers would. But he gave me a living salary and left me to myself. He has been very kind to me." "But she----" I choked back my sick resentment to get at what had been tearing its way through my consciousness for the last three hours. "She must have thought that _that_ was what I wanted of him...." "Well, it is natural she should be anxious, with other women about. She is in love with him." "Did you think so? About me, I mean?" "No," said Sarah. "No, I didn't think so." It was light enough now to show the outline of the drifts along the sills and the fine gritty powder which the wind dashed intermittently against the panes; the filter of day under the scant blinds brought out in the affair streaks of vulgarity as evident as the pattern of the paper on the wall. It seemed to borrow cheapness from the broken castor of the bureau, as from my recollection of the eaten face of the clock and the leaning chandelier. I sat up in the bed and laid hold of Sarah in my eagerness to get clear of what by my mere knowledge of it, seemed an unbearable complicity. "I had a feeling for him," I admitted. "I could act better with him; but it was different from that--you know it was different." "Yes," said Sarah, "I know. I know because I am that way myself; it is _like_ that, but it isn't that." I was still, holding my breath while she considered; we were very close upon the twined roots of sex and art. "There's a feeling that goes with acting, with other sorts of things, painting and music, maybe, a feeling of your wanting to get _through_ to something and lay hold of it, and your not being able to leaves you ... aching somehow, and you think if there's a particular person ... I think O'Farrell would understand ... it is being able to act makes you know the difference I suppose. He really can act you know, and you can, but Dean wouldn't understand, nor the others. My--Mr. Lawrence didn't understand!" It was the first time she had ever mentioned him to me. "Sometimes I think they might have felt the difference just at first, but nobody told them and they got used to thinking it is ... the other thing." She drew me down into the bed again and covered me. "You mustn't take it to hard ... we all go through it once ... and you are safe so long as you know." "But I can't go on with it." I was positive on that point. "Sarah, Sarah, don't say I have to go on with it." "I know you can't. But you just have to." "I should never be able to face either of them again without showing that I know." "And then the others will know and they will think ..." I threw out my arms, seeing how I was trapped. I wanted to cry out on them; to despise the woman openly. "And they will think that I am jealous ... that I wanted it myself...."