But her mood was anything but flippant; she was fighting off the time when her thoughts had of necessity to face the unpleasant, disturbing facts of the affair. She didn't want to think of the thing at all; she wanted to laugh it off and forget it, yet she knew that for an impossibility. The very desire to forget she recognized as a coward's wish, and she resented the idea that she was cowardly. "Forget the wise-cracks," she advised her image. "Face the thing and argue it out; that's the only way to be satisfied." She rose with a little grimace of pain at the twinge from her bruised knees, and crossed to the chaise lounge beside the far window. She settled herself in it and resumed her cogitations. She was feeling more or less herself again; the headache of the morning had nearly vanished, and aside from the various aches and a listless fagged-out sensation, she approximated her normal self. Physically, that is; the shadow of that other catastrophe, the one she hesitated to face, was another matter. "I'm lucky to get off this easily," she assured herself, "after going on a bust like that one, like a lumberjack with his pay in his pocket." She shook her head in mournful amazement. "And I'm Patricia Lane, the girl whom Billy dubbed 'Pat the Impeccable'! Impeccable! Wandering through alleys in step-ins and a table cloth--getting beaten up in a drunken brawl--passing out on rot-gut liquor--being carried home and put to bed! Not impeccable; incapable's the word! I belong to Dr. Carl's parade of incompetents." She continued her rueful reflections. "Well, item one is, I don't love Nick any more. I couldn't now!" she flung at the smiling green buddha on the mantel. "That's over; I've promised." Somehow there was not satisfaction in the memory of that promise. It was logical, of course; there wasn't anything else to do now, but still-- "That _wasn't_ Nick!" she told herself. "That wasn't _my_ Nick. I guess Dr. Carl is right, and he's a depressed what-ever-it-was; but if he's crazy, so am I! He had me convinced last night; I understood what he meant, and I felt what he wanted me to feel. If he's crazy, I am too; a fine couple we are!" She continued. "But it wasn't Nick! I saw his face when we drove off, and it had changed again, and that was Nick's face, not the other. And he was sorry; I could see he was sorry, and the other could never have regretted it--not ever! The other isn't--quite human, but Nick is." She paused, considering the idea. "Of course," she resumed, "I might have imagined that change at the end. I was hazy and quavery, and it's the last thing I _do_ remember; that must have been just before I passed out." And then, replying to her own objection, "But I _didn't_ imagine it! I saw it happen once before, that other night when--Well, what difference does it make, anyway? It's over, and I've given my promise."