She did not wait for any invitation; silently, with a white face, she climbed into the car and sat with hands folded about the pilgrim staff. It was as if she had taken him for granted and was waiting for his compliance to her will. And he understood. He moved the starter, and, as the motor began its chugging, he called out to the man in the doorway: "Better not wait for me. I seem to have a date with--a lady." There was an unpleasant intonation on the last word. "Please take a quiet road--where there will not be much passing," commanded Patsy. She did not speak again until the town lay far behind and they were well on that quiet road. Then she turned partly toward him, her hands still clasped, and when she spoke it was still in the best of the king's English--she had neither feeling nor desire for the intimacy of her own tongue. "I know it must seem a bit odd to have me, a stranger, come to you this way. But when a man's family and betrothed fail him--why, some one must--make it up--" He turned fiercely. "How did you know that?" "I--she--Never mind; I know, that's all. And I came, thinking maybe you'd be glad--" "Of another?" he laughed coarsely, looking her over with an appraising scrutiny. "Well, a fellow might have a worse--substitute." Patsy crimsoned. It seemed incredible that the man she had listened to that day in Marjorie Schuyler's den, who had then gripped her sympathies and thereby pulled her after him in spite of past illness and all common sense, should be the man speaking now. And yet--what was it Gregory Jessup had said about him? Had he not implied that old King Midas had long ago warped his son's trust in women until he had come to look upon them all as modern Circes? And gradually shame for herself changed into pity for him. What a shabby performance life must seem to such as he! She had an irresistible desire to take him with her behind the scenes and show him what it really was; to point out how with a change of line here, a new cue there, and a different drop behind; with a choice of fellow-players, and better lights, and the right spirit back of it all--what a good thing he could make of his particular part. But would he see--could she make him understand? It was worth trying. "You are every bit wrong," she said, evenly. "Look at me. Do I look like an adventuress? And haven't you ever had anybody kind to you simply because they had a preference for kindness?" The two looked at each other steadily while the machine crawled at minimum speed down the deserted road. Her eyes never flinched under the blighting weight of his, although her heart seemed to stop a hundred times and the soul of her shrivel into nothing. "Well," she heard herself saying at last, "don't you think you can believe in me?"