“What a price I have had to pay for folly,” he cried furiously. “A little damned love-making in a garden--” he was so savage that he was not choice of words and fell into profanity as men naturally do--“a half dozen notes and bouquets--Great God! Is there anything in that which should be a curse to a man’s whole life! And I love Olivia Berkeley. I could make her love me, but--but for you.” His violence sobered Madame Koller at once. “There was not much, certainly,” she responded calmly. “The love-making in the garden and the bouquets would have been little enough--but unfortunately hearts are so perverse. A great many are broken by such trifles. It was very amusing to you but not so amusing altogether to me.” Pembroke began to be ashamed of himself. But he was still magnanimous enough not to tell her that she had taken a queer course about those things. “I suppose I am to blame,” he said with sulky rage after a moment. “I’m willing to shoulder all the blame there is--but why should Olivia Berkeley be insulted and annoyed by this kind of thing? Do you think you will ever accomplish anything by--” he stopped and blushed both for himself and her. “One thing is certain,” he continued. “After what you have said to Olivia Berkeley, questioning her about me, as you have admitted, I shall simply carry out my intention of asking her to marry me. She shall at least know the truth from me. But I think my chances are desperate. Pshaw! I have no chance at all. It’s rather grotesque, don’t you think, for a man to ask a woman to marry him when he knows that she will throw him over and despise him from the bottom of her heart?” “That I must decline to discuss with you,” quietly answered Madam Koller. She was indeed quiet, for at last--and in an instant, she realized that she must forever give up Pembroke. All that long journey was for nothing--all those months of wretched loneliness, of still more wretched hopes and fears, were in vain. She heard Pembroke saying: “You had best let me see you home. It is too late for you to be out alone.” “You will not,” she replied. “I will not permit you, after what you have said, to go one step with me.” Pembroke felt thoroughly ashamed. It was one of the incidents of his association with Madame Koller and Ahlberg that they always made him say and do things he was ashamed of. In short, they demoralized him. He had been betrayed by temper and by circumstances into things that were utterly against his self-respect--like this ebullition of rage against a woman. In the plenitude of his remorse he was humble to the last degree. “May I,” he asked--“may I, at least accompany you to your own grounds? It is really not safe for you.” Madame Koller turned upon him and stamped her foot.