'Geoffrey, it may not be often that we come across each other again; why should we hold masks before our faces? We have been intimate. You have not forgiven me for leaving you. You have said to yourself, "If she had loved me she would have given up the world for me"; and so you concluded that I was a hypocrite from the beginning. But if I had been a hypocrite, I would have married you; or I would never have let you know that I loved you.' 'Probably I don't understand you--and never did.' 'No man ever was your rival, Geoffrey; the world was your rival; but yet you should not be jealous; because, though it drew me irresistibly, it never drew that best part of me that was yours. I could not have lived without the world--without longing for it; and I could not live with the world without longing for----Forgive me!' 'Take care what you say now, Ellice! You touch fire!' exclaimed Geoffrey in a suppressed growl, with a glow kindling under his gloomy brows. She rose quickly from her chair, moved close to him, and laid her hand upon his. 'Burn me, then!' she answered, with a strange, tragic smile. And while they confronted each other, she continued: 'My sin was that I preferred living falsely with the world, to living falsely with you.' 'You made the world a bad place for me,' returned Geoffrey; but his tone was no longer stern, and his hand now held hers. 'I had but one love, unfortunately, and that was yours. But you have a husband.' 'I have a name,' she answered carelessly, 'which I wear as I wear this hat, because it is the fashion. Only the one is called a husband and the other a hat.' 'That is not the whole of it. You can change your hat to-morrow; but there is only one way for a woman to get rid of a husband.' 'What difference about him, Geoffrey, if you will be my friend?' 'Your friend?' he repeated sharply, dropping her hand. 'Oh, do not be angry again!... no, no, not that! do not ask me to do that!... I am not so selfish, nor so wicked, Geoffrey, as to wish you to--to give up your life to what has not, after all, been wholly yours. I am not worth that. I only ask that you should be my friend. Help me to live so as to respect myself. What can I say? I know that what is past cannot be recalled; you can never feel towards me as you might have done if--if I had been less weak. But I am so lonely; I hoped you could----'