Rachel stood at one of the windows, which was thrown open. She was leaning against its side and looking out into the night. When she turned toward him something in her manner caused in Ffrench an increase of nervousness amounting to irritation. "You wish to say something to me," she remarked. "What is it?" "Yes," he answered. "I wish to say something to you." He could not make up his mind to say it for a moment or so. He found himself returning her undisturbed glance with an excited and bewildered one. "I--the fact is"--he broke forth, desperately, "I--I do not understand you." "That is not at all singular," she replied. "You have often said so before." He began to lose his temper and to walk about the room. "You have often chosen to seem incomprehensible," he said, "but _this_ is the most extraordinary thing you have done yet. You--you must know that it looks very bad--that people are discussing you openly--_you_ of all women!" Suddenly he wheeled about and stopped, staring at her with more uncertainty and bewilderment than ever. "I ought to know you better," he said, "I do know you better than to think you capable of any weakness of--of that kind. You are _not_ capable of it. You are too proud and too fond of yourself, and yet"---- "And yet what?" she demanded, in a peculiar, low voice. He faltered visibly. "And yet you are permitting yourself to--to be talked over and--misunderstood." "Do you think," she asked, in the same voice, "that I care for being 'talked over?'" "You would care if you knew what is said," he responded. "You do not know." "I can guess," she replied, "easily." But she was deadly pale and he saw it, and her humiliation was that she _knew_ he saw it. "What you do," he continued, "is of more consequence than what most women do. You are not popular. You have held yourself very high and have set people at defiance. If you should be guilty of a romantic folly, it would go harder with you than with others." "I know that," she answered him, "far better than you do." She held herself quite erect and kept her eyes steadily upon him. "What is the romantic folly?" she put it to him. He could not have put it into words just then if his life had depended upon his power to do it. "You will not commit it," he said. "It is not in you to do it, but you have put yourself in a false position, and it is very unpleasant for both of us." She stopped him. "You are very much afraid of speaking plainly," she said. "Be more definite." He flushed to the roots of his hair in his confusion and uneasiness. There was no way out of the difficulty.