"I can't stay long, Dudley. It is better that I shouldn't." She wanted to force on him an admission of her defeat. If she could only reproach him by showing him the destruction of her self-respect! Her eyes were purposely open to him. He would not see her. She resented his obliviousness. "You seem to me a master of evasion." When he sat down near her, he said, "Let it suffice, Julia, that I take the hard things you want to say to me as coming from a human being whom I respect and care for enormously--and I still think everything fine possible between us provided you accept in me what I have never doubted in you--my absolute good faith, and my absolute desire, to the best of my powers, to be honest and sincere in every moment of our relationship, past and present." Julia gave him a long look which he obliged himself to meet. Then she got up. "I can't stay, Dudley. You won't understand." She turned her head aside. Her voice trembled. "It's painful to me." He rose also, helplessly. He wanted to wring a last response from her. It was impossible. Everything seemed dark. He would not forgive her for going away. Julia took up her wrap from a chair and went out hastily without looking back. Dudley felt a swift pang of despair. Not because she was gone, but because her going left him again with the problem of reviving the hallucinations of greatness. It was not easy for him to deceive himself. He could do so only in the throes of emotions which exhausted him. In moments of unusual detachment he perceived the faults in himself as apart from the real elements of genius that existed in his work. But he was not strong enough to continue his efforts for the sake of an imperfect loveliness. Only in spiritual drunkenness could he conquer his susceptibility to the nihilistic suggestions of complacent and unimaginative beings. PART III Julia and Laurence were to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. Of late Laurence had shown an unusual measure of social punctiliousness. Julia realized that his new determination to see and be with people was a part of his resistance to suffering. She thought bitterly that his regard for the opinions of others was greater than his regard for her. Julia put on a thin summer gown, very simply made, a light green sash, and a large black hat. Her misery had pride in itself, but when she looked in the glass she was pleased, and it was difficult to preserve the purity of her unhappiness. As she descended the stairs at Laurence's side she felt guiltily the trivial effect of her becoming dress. She wanted him to notice her. "I'm afraid we are late." His fine eyes, with their sharp far-away expression, rested on her without seeming to take cognizance of her. "I hope not. Mrs. Hurst is a hostess who demands punctuality." He spoke to her as to a child. There was something cruel in his kindness. For fear of exposing himself he refused her equality.