'Stuff! You know what I mean. When I helped you--when I introduced Fricker to you--was that only friendship? You knew better. And at that time I was good enough for you. I'm not good enough for you now. So I'm kicked out with Fricker! It's a precious dangerous game you play, Trix.' 'Don't call me Trix!' 'I might call you worse than that, and not do you any wrong.' Among the temporal punishments of sin and folly there is perhaps none harder to bear than the necessity of accepting rebuke from unworthy lips, of feeling ourselves made inferior by our own acts to those towards whom we really (of this we are clear) stand in a position of natural superiority. Their fortuitous advantage is the most unpleasant result of our little slips. Trix realised the truth of these reflections as she listened to Beaufort Chance. Once again the scheme of life with which she had started in London seemed to have something very wrong with it. 'I--I'm sorry if I made you----' she began in a stammering way. 'Don't lie. It was deliberate from beginning to end,' he interrupted. A silence followed. Trix fingered her letter. He stood there, motionless but threatening. She was in simple bodily fear; the order not to lie seemed the precursor of a blow--just as it used to be in early days when her mother's nerves were very bad; but then Mrs. Trevalla's blows had not been severe, and habit goes for something. This recrudescence of the tone of the old life--the oldest life of all--was horrible. Of course Beaufort Chance struck no blow; it would have been ungentlemanly in the first place; in the second it was unnecessary; thirdly, useless. Among men of his class the distinction lies, not in doing or not doing such things, but in wanting or not wanting to do them. Beaufort Chance had the desire; his bearing conveyed it to Trix. But he spoke quietly enough the next minute. 'You'll find you can't go on in this fashion,' he said. 'I don't know what your plan is now, though perhaps I can guess. You mean to start afresh, eh? Not always so easy.' His look and voice were full of a candid contempt; he spoke to her as a criminal might to his confederate who had 'rounded on' him in consideration of favours from the police. He did not strike her, but in the end, suddenly and with a coarse laugh, he stooped down and wrenched the letter from her hand, not caring if he hurt her. She gave a little cry, but sat there without a movement save to chafe her wrenched fingers softly against the palm of the other hand. Beaufort Chance read the letter; it was very short: 'I knew you would do what I wish. Expect me to-morrow.--M.'