'They deceived me,' she faltered. 'Oh, I know all that! Must you say that again? Tell me--what will there be left? Will there be enough to--to exist upon? Or must I'--she broke into a smile of ridicule--'or must I try to work?' There was a pathetic absurdity about the suggestion. Airey's gruff laugh relieved the sternness of his indignation. 'Yes, I've shown such fine practical talents, haven't I?' she asked forlornly. 'You were very extravagant, but you'd have been in a tolerable position but for Fricker. Dramoffskys and Glowing Stars between them have done the mischief.' 'Yes. If I hadn't cheated him, and he hadn't cheated me in return, I should have been in a tolerable position. But I knew that before I came here, Mr. Newton.' 'Well, it's the truth,' he persisted, looking at her grimly over the top of the paper. 'You needn't repeat it,' she flashed out indignantly. Then her tone changed suddenly. 'Forgive me; it's so hard to hear the truth sometimes, to know it's true, to have nothing to answer.' 'Yes, it is hard sometimes,' Airey agreed. 'Oh, you don't know. You've not cheated and been cheated; you've had nothing to conceal, nothing to lie about, nothing that you dreaded being found out in.' She wrung her hands despairingly. 'I've warned you before now not to idealise me.' 'I can't help it. I believe even your Paris advice was all right, if I'd understood it rightly. You didn't mean that I was to think only of myself and nothing of anybody else, to do nothing for anyone, to share nothing with anyone. You meant I was to make other people happy too, didn't you?' 'I don't know what I meant,' he growled, as he laid her paper on the mantelpiece. Trix wandered to the window and sat down in the chair generally appropriated to Peggy Ryle. 'I'm sick of myself,' she said. 'A self's not such an easy thing to get rid of, though.' She glanced at him with some constraint. 'I'm afraid I'm bothering you? I really have no right to make you doleful over my follies. You've kept out of it all yourself; I needn't drag you into it.' She rose as if she would go. Airey Newton stood motionless. It seemed as though he would let her leave him without a word. She had not in her heart believed that he would. She in her turn stood still for a moment. When he made no sign, she raised her head in proud resentment; her voice was cold and offended. 'I'm sorry I troubled you, Mr. Newton.' She began to walk towards the door, passing him on the way. Suddenly he sprang forward and caught her by the hands. 'Don't go!' he said in a peremptory yet half-stifled whisper. Trix's eyes filled with tears. 'I thought you couldn't really mean to do that,' she murmured. 'Oh, think of what it is, think of it! What's left for me?' He had loosed her hands as quickly as he had caught them, and she clasped them in entreaty.