This was another facet to the prism of the woman. Charter could not be quite certain as to her present intent, so frequently alternating had been the currents of her emotion during the interview. Typically an actress, she had run through her whole range of effects. He was not prepared yet to say which was trick, which reality; which was the woman, Selma Cross, or the tragedienne. He did not miss the thought that his theory was amazingly strengthened here--the theory that moral derangement results from excessive simulation. "You--would--not--kiss--me," she repeated. "For my own sake, I'd like to believe--that you're trying to be true to some one,--but it's all rot that there are men like that! It's because I no longer tempt you--you spook!" "You said you had a lover----" She shivered. "You left me unfinished." There was a tragic plaint in her tone, and she added hastily, "There was a reason for my trying you.... I think the most corroding of the knives you have left in me to-night, is that you have refused to ask why I brought you here--refused even to utter the name--of the woman you expected to see--_in my presence_.... You may be a man; you may be a cad; you may be a new appetite, or a God resurrected out of a Glowworm. I either hate or love you--or both--to the point of death! Either way--remember this--I'll be square as a die--to you and to my friend. You'll begin to see what I mean--to-morrow, I think...." He was at the door. "Good-night," he said and touched the signal for the elevator. She called him back, "Come and see me--at my best--at the _Herriot_--won't you?" "Yes----" "But tell me what performance--and where your seat is----" "... Good-night." The car stopped at the floor. SIXTEENTH CHAPTER PAULA FINDING THAT BOTH GIANTS HAVE ENTERED HER CASTLE, RUSHES IN TUMULT INTO THE NIGHT It was after eight that Sunday night, when Paula emerged from the elevator in the upper-hall of the _Zoroaster_, and noted that the door of the Selma Cross apartment was ajar.... The interval since she had parted from the actress the evening before had been abundant with misery. Almost, she had crossed the bay to visit the Reifferscheids; would have done so, indeed, had she been able to 'phone her coming. Her rooms had become a dismal oppression; Bellingham haunted her consciousness; there were moments when she was actually afraid there alone.