“You are right. I hope you are as grateful as I am that I can’t. I’d be bored to extinction with the ordinary state called ‘marital bliss,’ either with a man who doted upon me or one upon whom I doted. Fact is----” Bending closer to the glass, she focused into the twin pair of eyes a look of assured capability, “I never did care for you. Lately I quite dislike you. You are, you know, superior. I don’t wish to be superior myself and I resent people who are. There now! You say you like honesty--won’t you give me a good mark?” With one of her unaccountable transitions, her manner changed from frank spite to pathos. Brushing her hand across her eyes, as if to hide from him any sign of the feeling to which she had declared herself immune, she crossed to the window and leaned, looking out, against the effective background of its bronze hanging. “No, my only husband--the answer is no.” The cynicism in what she said was weakened by the way she said it. “I’m sorry to refuse any little request of yours, but I cannot give you up. And I don’t think, really, that you have been quite nice. Since the challenge was to come from you, you might have been heroic enough to let me name the weapons--swords or pistols, you know--that impossible Reno or New York. Don’t you think yourself that you have added insult to injury?” He did not dignify the appeal with a reply. He was about to go; had bowed to her formally and was crossing to the door. “John, dear.” Her quavery cry stopped him on the threshold. She followed him and stood with her gold-gloried head hung low over her twisting hands. “You say I have lost all kindness, John. I think _you_ have. You are not what you used to be, any more than am I. You haven’t had a thought for me in what you ask. Perhaps a man cannot realize what it means to a woman to--to be faced with a demand like yours of to-day. For me to divorce you for deserting me--to admit to our world that you have tired of me---- Even supposing there is nothing to me but what you say, don’t you know that would crucify my vanity? But there is more to me, John. I once _was_ that kitten-girl you thought me. At times--even yet--I have my softer feelings. I am used to compliments and I--I am hurt to the heart by your insult.” John did not take advantage of her pause. He continued to wait and wonder. “I see far less beautiful women than I being understood and appreciated,” she continued after a quivering sigh. “Is it too much that I ask to be endured? And yet, I don’t want to ask that--I really don’t. I want you to be happy, but---- Oh, John, why couldn’t you have waited until I’d recovered? What with the accident and poor Jack’s death and the funeral and now _this_, I feel that I’ve had almost more than I can stand. To-day my head aches until----” Again she paused. And again he did not speak.