She wasn't, she wasn't, she didn't want to be. Why couldn't they see that and understand? Why couldn't they see that she was a woman with a great wealth of understanding to offer a man, a woman with the blood warm in her veins, a woman who could free herself to.... A wave of bitterness, or returning rage almost impossible to control, searing, destructive, hardly to be endured, swept over her and she buried her face in her hands. If only Lathrup hadn't-- Roger Bendiner. The only man who'd refused to be angered by her shyness, by her panic when the moment actually came and she knew that there was no escape and she'd have to-- Let him undress her. Yes ... yes. She could let herself remember it now, she could begin to bring it out into the open, with no fear of being laughed at and misunderstood. His rough hands on her shoulders and that look in his eyes.... It was like a night of lightning and thunder and you fled into the dark woods and you fled and were overtaken and stuck down. But it was what she had always wanted, always longed for, a bursting wonder and you didn't care about the cruel, dark shafts of pain. But with Roger alone. Because Roger wasn't just any man. He respected her and loved her and was not afraid to frighten her because he knew that there was nothing for her to fear. Oh, why was she lying to herself, even now? She would never see him again. Even if he came back to her, and begged her forgiveness for what he had done, even if he swore that Helen Lathrup meant nothing to him, she could never forgive him. It was too late, too late now, too late for-- The desk shook with her sobbing. * * * * * He stood by the _down_ elevator with a bulging briefcase under his arm, a pale, hatless young man with unruly dark hair and deepset, feverishly bright eyes. His features were gaunt, the cheekbone region looking almost cavernous beneath the heavy overhang of his brow. A strange face, a remarkable face, not unappealing, but different somehow--a young-old face with bony contours, strange ridges, and depressions, a shadowy ruggedness of aspect which some women might have greatly liked and others looked upon with disfavor. He was staring now at the double glass door with its gilt lettering--hateful to him now. EATON-LATHRUP PUBLICATIONS. He had come out of that door for the last time, he told himself, with a sudden trembling which he was powerless to control. He was free of her at last and he'd never go back again. If a man is born with just one kidney or a right-sided heart how can he hope to operate on himself and make himself resemble the general run of people? She'd encouraged him, hadn't she? Given him the feeling that she did understand, did sympathize. She'd acted at first like another Thomas Wolfe had walked into the office.