"Because I haven't any money, you know." "Mr. Beekman!" She put her hand before her face, and he saw that he had been wrong. "I beg your pardon," he sulkily said. "In the circumstances, it wasn't an unnatural supposition, though my mother thoroughly understands my manner of life; but I see now that I shouldn't have said it." He paused, and then, because he hated to be in the wrong, he hunted about for another excuse for attack, and, finding one, became more angry than before. "Only how dared you," he asked, "how did you dare to come into this house?" Violet bowed her russet head. "I didn't know it was yours," she said. "You didn't know?" "How could I? Lena didn't happen to say nothin' about you before to-day, an' your mother has a different name." "Don't talk of my mother!" he commanded. Had Violet known all the truth of her mistress, it would probably have flashed over even the servant's dull brain that the difference between a woman beaten into slavery and a woman that married the man who, during her first marriage, had been her lover, was a difference not of kind, but of degree, and of a degree decidedly in the ethical favor of the former. However, she held her tongue. It was the best shield she could have chosen. Through silence few fits of anger are strong enough to reach, and the quick temper of Beekman began slowly to spend itself. "I don't see how you could come into any decent house," he grumbled, "no matter whether you knew whose it was or not." Still Violet did not answer. "I suppose you didn't think about that, though," Philip pursued. Violet was as yet too stunned at all adequately to feel. With a shaking finger she drew invisible arabesques upon the shelf beside her. "How did you get away from Rose's, anyhow?" he asked. Slowly she raised her head. Slowly she fixed him with her tired blue eyes. And slowly, still drawing arabesques now unregarded, she answered: "Does that make much difference, Mr. Beekman?" "Wasn't I interested?" he blustered. "Because, you see," she concluded, "however it was, it wasn't by none of the help you promised." The thrust just pierced his armor of convention. "Oh, well," he said, "what could I do? I wanted to help--you know that--but what could I do?" "Nothin'!" Her eyes clouded as if they looked at something which, though clear to sight, passed all explaining. "Nothin', I suppose." The words lent him courage. "And I can't do anything now," he went on, his anger cold, but his determination unchanged. "I'm sorry for you--on my word of honor, I am sorry for you with my whole heart, Violet--but you can't stay here--you must see that you can't stay in this house another night." Her eyes were still on his. "I know you think that," she replied, as if puzzled and seeking a solution. "An' I know what you think goes.--But, myself, I can't see why not." "But, Violet, just consider!" he cried, his hands outstretched.