'As soon as you begin, I'll attend,' retorted Trix; 'but you're not saying anything. You're only saying you're going to say something.' Her manner was annoying; perhaps she would have welcomed the diversion of a little quarrel. But Beaufort was not to be turned aside; he was bent on business. Fricker, it seemed, was disposed of. He remained. But before he could formulate a beginning to this subject, Trix broke in:-- 'I want to get out of these speculations as soon as I can,' she said. 'I don't mind about not making any more money as long as I don't lose any. I'm tired of--of the suspense, and--and so on. And, oh, I won't have anything more to do with the Frickers!' He looked at her in quick distrust. 'Your views have undergone a considerable change,' he remarked. 'You don't want to speculate? You don't mind about not making any more money?' Trix looked down and would not meet his eyes. 'Going to live on what you've got?' he asked mockingly. 'Or is it a case of cutting down expenses and retiring to the country?' 'I don't want to discuss my affairs. I've told you what I wish.' He took a turn across the room and came back. His voice was still calm, but the effort was obvious. 'What's happened?' he asked. 'Nothing,' said Trix. 'That's not true.' 'Nothing that concerns you, I mean.' 'Am I to be treated like Fricker? Do you want to have nothing more to do with me?' 'Nonsense! I want us to be friends, of course.' 'You seem to think you can use men just as you please. As long as they're useful you'll be pleasant--you'll promise anything----' 'I never promised anything.' 'Oh, women don't promise only in words. You'll promise anything, hold out any hopes, let anything be understood! No promises, no! You don't like actual lying, perhaps, but you'll lie all the while in your actions and your looks.' People not themselves impeccable sometimes enunciate moral truths and let them lose little in the telling. Trix sat flushed, miserable, and degraded as Beaufort Chance exhibited her ways to her. 'You hold them off, and draw them on, and twiddle them about your finger, and get all you can out of them, and make fools of them. Then--something happens! Something that doesn't concern them! And, for all you care, they may go to the devil! They may ruin themselves for you. What of that? I daresay I've ruined myself for you. What of that?' Trix was certainly no more than partly responsible for any trouble in which Mr. Chance's dealings might land him; but we cannot attend to our own faults in the very hour of preaching to others. Chance seemed to himself a most ill-used man; he had no doubt that but for Trix Trevalla he would have followed an undeviatingly straight path in public and private morality. 'Well, what have you got to say?' he demanded roughly, almost brutally. 'I've nothing to say while you speak like that.' 'Didn't you lead me to suppose you liked me?' 'I did like you.'