“We’ll sing it at the _Castle_ the last thing,” she said, leaving hastily. No ease had come to him. His thoughts now were not the same as those which had come during the singing. He tried to put them away. He didn’t like the idea of giving her money. He knew that she didn’t expect to see him again; also that if he did come she would accept the service of a stranger, and give in return as little as she could. How explicit she was, already touched with the cold stone of the world. He did want to help her, and it had been pure at first. Talk as usual had broken the beauty of that. Sophistication and self-consciousness had come; her face changing more and more as the moments passed after the song. New York had taught them each their parts. It had been her thought from the first that he was looking for prey, but it had been very far from his. Bellair was not without imagination. He saw himself following this girl in a future time, playing the part he had despised in other men--the dumb, slaving, enduring male; she continually expectant of his services, petulant, unreasonable without them. For the first time the question came to him: Is there not a queer sort of conquest in the lives of such men?... She was for herself; had it all planned out, the waiting, and what she would give on the way up, beside her song. It would not be much; as little as possible, in fact; but as much as was absolutely demanded. Bellair in the present state of mind seemed to object to all this less than what she wanted of the world--praise and fame. “She’s just a little girl after all,” he muttered. “She ought to have her chance.” He added (easing the conception a little for his own peace) that she was only franker and more outspoken than other women he had known; that they all wanted money and place, and wanted men who could furnish such things. Suddenly it occurred that the incident automatically supplied the final break with Lot & Company and New York. He laughed aloud.... He might borrow enough in time to make up the amount he gave her for morning, but that would certainly be a betrayal of the fiery urge that had whipped him all week to cross over into a new life and burn the last bridge. He took his bags down to the station, arranging with the landlady to have his goods stored for the present. After that he rambled, a grateful freshness in the cool wind. His steps led through darker streets, where he startled the misery from the faces of the forbidden who took a chance on him. Their voices _would_ whine; they couldn’t help it, and all they wanted in the world was money.... He was at the _Castle_ before the quartette came.... They sang and Bellair dreamed.