“If a girl’s lover turns out badly, she ought not to cry about him--it is neither moral nor respectable. I say this, Sappha, politely and kindly.” “Thank you, politely and kindly, Annette.” “I hope Leonard may come out of this affair better than we think.” “Thank you. I hope Achille may come out of this affair better than we think.” The clash of the front door emphasised this provoking bit of courtesy, and Sappha flew like a bird to her room, that she might conceal the tumult of outraged feelings warring within her. And then as soon as she was alone all her anger fled from Annette to Leonard. She accused him with bitter unreason; for at this hour she was insensible to everything but the painfully humiliating results of what she still mentally called “his quarrel” with Horace Gilson. And, oh, how Annette had hurt her! For Annette had not yet learned how to endure; and they who can bear nothing are themselves unbearable. For two hours she gave full sway to her insurgent feelings; but at the last every mental struggle ended in her blaming Leonard. Leonard, for her sake, ought to have avoided such a degrading quarrel--Leonard ought to have faced it the first thing the following morning, instead of that he had trifled away the whole day in Nassau Street, and the next day at Annette’s, and now Annette felt that she had the right to call his courtesy cowardice. “Well, then, it looks like cowardice!” she sobbed passionately, “and then Saturday he told me some story about his lawyer detaining him--never once did he name Gilson to me. It looks like---- _Oh, wee! oh, wee!_ my heart will break with the shame of it! Every one will pity me. Even if some make excuses for Leonard, I shall know it is only pity for me--only pity! I cannot bear it! I cannot think of it! Father and mother must take me away--no, no, I must face the shame, smile at it, what they call ‘live it down.’ Oh, what shall I say? What shall I do? And mother is too ill to trouble. And to father I cannot complain of Leonard. Oh, Leonard! Leonard! Leonard!” And it was while tossed from wave to wave on this flood tide of anger and sorrow that she was told Leonard was waiting to see her. She rose up hastily. Had she taken a few moments to calm herself everything might have been different. But even her opening of the doors between herself and her lover betrayed the whirl and tumult of the feelings that distracted her. Nor was this mental storm soothed by Leonard’s presence. He came eagerly forward to meet her; a pleasant smile on his face and a white rose in his hand. She took the flower from him, and threw it down upon the table; and he regarded her with amazement. Her face, her attitude, the passion of her movements, arrested the words he was eager to utter; and in that fateful pause Sappha’s unguarded, unconsidered accusations fell like the voice of doom upon his senses.