“I’ll tell you,” she said bitterly, her words coming as if anger pushed them out. “Heaven knows I’ve tried to conceal it even from myself. But your viciousness shows you’ve got a rotten conscience. When you took that Thorstad girl into your office I wondered why--and then after I told you she’d been seen at that place with a man, your silly defence of her might have told me what was the situation. You talk of her--all the time--all the time. You were away that week-end. Where were you if you weren’t with her?” He let her go then. She had said it. It was said, as he had wanted it said. He felt triumphant. And he would give her no satisfaction. He would hurt her--and hurt her. She went on in a tumbled burst of words. “I don’t blame the girl, though she’s a little fool. But I won’t stand having her let in for that sort of thing.” “Why not?” asked Gage, lighting a cigarette. “Isn’t it a perfectly proper thing for a modern woman to choose her lovers where she will?” Helen felt herself grow dizzy, not at his question but at the admission it made. She drew herself up and Gage wondered at her beauty with a hot surge of desire even while he wanted to torture her more. It was such a relief to have found a weapon. “Come,” he went on, “we won’t discuss that young lady. There’s not a thing in the world against her. If you have been bending your ear to the ground and heard a lot of rotten gossip I’m not responsible. If the people who talk about her had half her quality--” “I warn you, Gage, you’re going to pieces,” interrupted Helen. “I can’t stop you if you’re determined to ruin yourself. But you’ve acted like a pettish child for months about the fact that I wanted to do some work you didn’t approve of, apparently you’ve run off and got mixed up with this girl, you’ve been drinking far too much--you had whisky before breakfast this morning--it’s beginning to tell on you.” “I miss you, Helen,” said Gage with a kind of sinister sarcasm. She shivered. “I’m going upstairs.” “We’re not through.” “Yes, we are.” “Aren’t you going to divorce me--or would that hurt your career?” “You’re not yourself, Gage,” said Helen. She had regained a loose hold on herself. “I’d sooner not talk to you any more to-night.” He flattened the end of his lighted cigarette and pulled the chain of the table light. “Then we’ll talk upstairs.” “Not to-night.” “Yes, we will, Helen. I’m lonely for you.” He came to where she stood. “Come along, my dear.” There was not a tone in his voice that Helen could recognize. A kind of ugly caress--she shuddered. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Gage--you mustn’t touch me like this.” He laughed at her. “It’s quite the new way, as I understand it, my dear, isn’t it? Nature--openness--no false modesties, no false sentiments. After all we are married--or to be more modern, we’re openly living together. The pictures in the paper prove it. There’s no use being silly. You’ve had your way a lot lately--now how about mine?”