"Nothing," she answered slowly. "I can't help the feeling. It's there. But I can thrust it into the background, go on as if it didn't exist. There's nothing else for me to do, that I can see. I'm sorry, Jack." "So am I," he said grimly. "Still, it was a chance we took,--or I took, rather. I seem to have made a mistake or two, in my estimate of both you and myself. That is human enough, I suppose. You're making a bigger mistake than I did though, to let Monohan sweep you off your feet." There was something that she read for contempt in his tone. It stung her. "He hasn't swept me off my feet, as you put it," she cried. "Good Heavens, do you think I'm that spineless sort of creature? I've never forgotten I'm your wife. I've got a little self-respect left yet, if I was weak enough to grasp at the straw you threw me in the beginning. I was honest with you then. I'm trying to be honest with you now." "I know, Stella," he said gently. "I'm not throwing mud. It's a damnably unfortunate state of affairs, that's all. I foresaw something of the sort when we were married. You were candid enough about your attitude. But I told myself like a conceited fool that I could make your life so full that in a little while I'd be the only possible figure on your horizon. I've failed. I've known for some time that I was going to fail. You're not the thin-blooded type of woman that is satisfied with pleasant surroundings and any sort of man. You're bound to run the gamut of all the emotions, sometime and somewhere. I loved you, and I thought in my conceit I could make myself the man, the one man who would mean everything to you." "Just the same," he continued, "you've been a fool, and I don't see how you can avoid paying the penalty for folly." "What do you mean?" she asked. "You haven't tried to play the game," he answered tensely. "For months you've been withdrawing into your shell. You've been clanking your chains and half-heartedly wishing for some mysterious power to strike them off. It wasn't a thing you undertook lightly. It isn't a thing--marriage, I mean--that you hold lightly. That being the case, you would have been wise to try making the best of it, instead of making the worst of it. But you let yourself drift into a state of mind where you--well, you see the result. I saw it coming. I didn't need to happen in this afternoon to know that there were undercurrents of feeling swirling about. And so the way you feel now is in itself a penalty. If you let Monohan cut any more figure in your thoughts, you'll pay bigger in the end." "I can't help my thoughts, or I should say my feelings," she said wearily. "You think you love him," Fyfe made low reply. "As a matter of fact, you love what you think he is. I daresay that he has sworn his affection by all that's good and great. But if you were convinced that he didn't really care, that his flowery protestations had a double end in view, would you still love him?"