“_What_ did you say? But enough of this, let us finish this folly at once, Flora! You appear strangely to misunderstand the nature of our relations to one another. If so, you had better rectify your ideas on the subject as soon as possible. The relations that may have existed between us yesterday are not forced to exist to-day. It is the old story, my dear Flora, acted in every part of the world, in every phase of society from the Royalties down to the costermongers, and yet you, sharp as you are, don’t seem to comprehend it. It is that in this world there are two sorts of women--one sort, charming like you, lawless like you, to whom a man gives either an hour or a year of his life, according to his own free will--a sort that please him one day, and disgust him the next, who ought not to expect from him anything, but attention sometimes, caprice and changeability always. A sort he takes up without any reality of feeling, and puts down without compunction or remorse. The other sort is like Miss Meredyth, brought up properly, with decent notions and respectable ways. To them a fellow naturally gives his life, his love, his respect, his name, and for these he abandons such as--Flora Fitzallan. You were born to be a plaything for a time; Miss Meredyth was born to be a guardian angel. You have insulted me, my dear Flora, you have credited me with vile interested motives, and forced me to place the above truisms before you, and now, perhaps, you _will_ let me go.” He rises slowly, takes his hat, and drawing on his gloves lounges to the door. Miss Fitzallan looks round, and tries to find in his face some signs of indecision, but fails, and she notices that there is no perceptible lingering in his step. Frantic jealousy and anger, mingled with love for him, possess her. He is really the only man she has loved, and whose companionship has given her any genuine happiness in her tinsel existence of stage spangles and hypocrisy; without him she thoroughly believes she cannot live. “Carl, come back, don’t leave me like this,” she cries pitifully. “If my love for you has made me say one word to vex you, see, I ask your pardon on my knees, for Carl, you know how I love you, worship you, that there is nothing in the whole world that I would not sacrifice for you and your good except the sight of you, Carl, and that I _must_ have or die! Come back, and give me a kiss of forgiveness, and if you say anything horrid I will be mum.” Miss Fitzallan has assumed a pose that would bring down the house if she were on the stage at this moment. It is so fine, so artistic, and she has called up all the emotional fire she knows into her big brown eyes, exerting herself as much to chain and enchant this man as though she was the cynosure of all London. It seems to her at this moment that there is but only one thing worth striving for, or existing for, and that is Carlton Conway’s devotion.