"He used me for 'copy,' as they call it. His article on the 'acting of stage-folk after hours,' appeared in a magazine a few weeks later. He's always a saint in his garret, you know. The article was filled with cutting cynicism about stage-matters, many of which he had discovered in the two weeks with me--and laughed over with his wine. I could have forgiven that, only he made me believe that there was not a thought apart from Selma Cross in his mind when we were together.... Oh, what's the use of me lying? I could have forgiven that, anyway!" "What was it, you could not forgive?" Paula's face was bloodless. "He told it all about--how easy I had proved in his hands!" the actress revealed with suppressed fury. The other shrank back. "That's where the expression comes in, Paula--the expression you hate. Drunk or sober--cad's the word. What a woman gives to a _man_ is put in his inner vault forever. What she gives to a _cad_--is passed on to his friends." Paula arose, tortured as if branded within. Here was a defection of character which an entire incarnation of purity could not make whole. It was true that in her heart, she had not been mortally stricken before; true, as Selma Cross had so bitterly declared, that a woman is not stayed from mating with a man because a sister has suffered at his hands. "I have nothing to say about the word, if that is true." Paula spoke with difficulty, and in a hopeless tone. "Please, eat some supper, dear----" There was heart-break in the answer: "I cannot. I'm distressed, because I have spoiled yours.... You have answered everything readily--and it has hurt you.... I--feel--as--if--I--must--tell--you--why--I--asked--or I wouldn't have dared to force questions upon you. His letters made me think of him a great deal. When you picked up his book the other morning and said _that_--why, it was all I could stand for the time. His work is so high and brave--I can hardly understand how he could talk about a woman whose only fault was that she gave him what he desired. Are you sure he cannot prove that false?" Selma Cross left her seat at the table and took Paula in her arms. "How can he?" she whispered. "The old man knew all about us. One of his friends heard Charter talking about the easy virtue of stage women--that there were scarcely no exceptions! Charter hinted in his article that acting is but refined prostitution. Villiers said because I had a name for being square Charter had chosen to prove otherwise!... Then see how he dropped me--not a word in three years from my memorable lover! And Villiers knew about us--first and last!... I could murder that sort--and to think that his devil's gift has been working upon you----" "You have told me quite enough, thank you." Paula interrupted in a lifeless voice. "I shall not see him." Selma Cross held her off at arms' length to glance at her face. "You what?" she exclaimed.