"What have you brought to me during these past years," he demanded, sternly, "but constant requests for money, and the necessity for incessant effort to meet new phases of extravagance? You have not asked what was kind, merciful, and true, but what was the latest style. Few days pass but that I am reminded of you by a bill for some frippery or other; but how often am I reminded of you by acts of filial thoughtfulness, by words of sympathy in my hard battle of life when I am present, or by genial letters when absent? I have spent three hot days in the city seeking chiefly your interest, and a more mechanical, perfunctory thing never existed than your kiss of greeting to-night. There was as much feeling in it as in the quarter that I handed to the stage-driver. I have spent thousands on your education, but you don't sing for me, you don't read to me, you never think of soothing my overtaxed nerves by cheerful, hopeful talk. Were I a steel automaton, supplying your wants, I should answer just as well, and in that case you might remember the laws of matter and apply a little oil occasionally. What are the motives of your life but dress, admiration, excitement, a rapid succession of men to pass under your baleful fascination, and then to pass on crippled in soul for having known you? Unless you can give Graydon Muir a loving woman's heart, and mean to cling to him for worse as well as better, you will commit a crime before God and man if you accept him. With Arnault it is different. In mind you are near enough of kin to marry. As long as you complied with fashionable and worldly proprieties, he would be content; but a man with a heart and soul in his body would perish in the desert of a home that your selfishness would create." "It's awful for you to talk to me in this way!" she whined, wincing and crying under his arraignment. "It's awful that I have to speak to you in this way, either to make you realize what deformities your beauty hides, so that you may apply the remedy, or else, if you will not, to promote your union with a man content to take for a wife a belle, and not a woman. "I suppose I am chiefly to blame, though, or you would be different," he added, with a dark, introspective look. "I was proud of you as a beautiful child, and tried to win your love by indulgence. Heaven knows, I would like to be a different man, but it's all a breathless hurry after bubbles that vanish when grasped! Well, what do you propose to do? You see that you can't hesitate much longer." "I will decide soon," she answered, sullenly. Although her conscience echoed his words, and she felt their justice, her pride prevailed, and she permitted him to depart without another word. CHAPTER XXIV "I'LL SEE HOW YOU BEHAVE"