"I never did before," said she. "It kills me. Why, can't you see? I have been selling myself--my body, my face, my eyes, _myself,_ a little at a time, a little to each of them. I've been selling myself. They paid to see _me._ Now I can dance no more. Yes, you are right, I am awake at last; and I tell you I am some one else. I have been in a dream, it seems to me, for years. But now I can see." "Well, let the dancing go," said Decherd, rising and coming toward her. "Never mind about that." "Let everything go!" cried Miss Lady, fiercely. "Let everything go! Marry you? Why, sir, if indeed you understood a girl, you would not want me to come to you feeling as I do now. Can't you see that a girl must _depend_ on the man she loves? I have tried to feel sure. I have tried to see you clearly. Now, to-night, it is just as it was that time years ago when you spoke to me; something comes between us. I can not see you clearly. I can not understand. And so long as that is true, I can never, never marry you. I can not talk about it. Go! I do not want to see you!" A sudden alarm seized upon Henry Decherd. "Listen," he said; "listen to me. I can not have you talk this way. Why, you know this sort of thing is absolutely wrong." "Everything's wrong!" cried Miss Lady, burying her face in her hands as she sank on a couch. "Everything is wrong! I am ashamed, I can not tell you why. I don't know why, but I have changed, all at once. I'm not myself any more. I'm some one else. I don't know _who_ I am! I never knew. Oh, shall I never know--shall I never understand why I am not myself!" Decherd caught her hands. "We shall not wait," said he, "we'll be married to-morrow." His voice trembled in a real emotion, although on his face there sat an uneasiness not easily read. "Dearest, forget all this," he repeated. "Go home and sleep, and to-morrow--" Her eyes flashed in the swift, imperious anger wherewith upon the instant sex may dominate sex, leaving no argument or answer. Yet in the next breath the girl turned away, her anger faded into anxiety. She wavered, softened in her attitude. "Oh, he told me, he told me!" murmured she to herself. "I can not--I can not!" She seemed unconscious of Decherd's presence. But soon she forgot her own soliloquy. Once more she looked Decherd squarely in the face. "I can not marry you," she said. "I _will_ not!" "I'll not allow you to make a fool of yourself, or of me," said Decherd. "What do you mean--who is 'he'?" He had his answer on the moment, not from her lips, but by one of those strange freaks of fate which often set us wondering in our commonplace lives. There came a tap at the door, and a call boy offered a card. "It's against orders, I know, ma'am," he began, "but then--" Decherd, full of suspicion, sprang at the messenger and caught the card before Miss Lady saw it. His swift glance gave him small comfort. "Eddring!" he cried. "By God! John Eddring! So--"