“If I was you,” warned Flora, “I’d reform. Men don’t marry light women.” Matilda did not reply to this excellent advice. It was doubtful if she heard it. Her head hummed and something in her throat whirred. Once in her room, she threw herself full length across the bed and sobbed. She didn’t weep because she felt guilty. She wept because the vulgar words of that coarse woman had pounded her brilliant conception of herself into the dust. It was like seeing a beloved rose go worm-eaten--to have her dream go like that. She wasn’t in love with Eugene. It was more tragic than that. She was still in her Crittenden cage. A bar would have to be broken, and she had counted on Eugene’s ardour. He represented her only way out. Once out, there would be countless hands to help her up. And now she was about to be driven into the street like the scarlet-lettered women one read about. How had George Sand managed things? How would she have managed an irate landlady? Well, she was done for ... done for.... Then a ray of hope filtered through the gloom. She had one more night. She would put Eugene to the test. He adored her. He had said so over and over until her ears ached with it. Confronted with the possibility of losing her, he would make something happen--something that would make it radiantly unnecessary to return to Crittenden. Matilda slept finally--slept across her bed in wrinkled crêpe de chine while a noisy gas jet drew the hot yellow walls together.... When she awoke it was past noon. Her temples throbbed and her gown was a wreck, but that didn’t matter. Eugene would be glad to take her, headache and all, in her old serge; for deep down inside Matilda Gessler there was an inherited technic which up until now she had not been stirred enough to use. She would use it now. She would return Eugene’s kisses. Perhaps she would find herself in love with Eugene if she returned one of his kisses, and then she, too, would be entitled to feel that, “_Quand on a aimé un homme, il est bien difficile d’aimer Dieu ... c’est si différent!_” Matilda hummed under her breath as she crammed her dingy wardrobe into a wicker suitcase. At six o’clock Matilda stole out and ate a hasty sandwich in the little white-tiled lunch room around the corner. She would have died rather than face the polite hostility in Flora Campbell’s dining room. At six-thirty she slipped back into the front hall. Uncertainty assailed her and made her cheeks tingle with something not unlike shame. If only Eugene would appear and they could unobtrusively slip out together! She smiled as she visualized his probable uneasiness about her non-appearance at dinner. He might even omit pudding and rush out. She wavered there at the foot of the stairs, her breath shortening and thickening in her throat.