"You must be mad to think you can shift for yourself in a strange country." "Mad or not, that is exactly what I think," she said, coldly. "And I shall begin to pack my things now." She actually drew out a bag and suited the action to the words. Claude looked on, speechless. After a while he went over and, roughly taking hold of one of her arms, continued his remonstrance. "You can’t even _read_ the language, let alone speak it. And you haven’t a penny of your own. Or do you expect to earn money on the streets?" "Not until I’ve exhausted the _regular_ channels," she said, maddeningly calm. Inwardly she was boiling. She looked at him steadily until he released her arm. Then she added: "I feel perfectly capable of looking out for myself, even in a strange country. Here are some socks I bought for you at a counter where no English was spoken." "The devil take the socks!" he said, hurling the package to the other end of the room. She sat down on a tuffet beside her case. "You know quite well that I had a little money of my own, which I brought with me," she said. "That will do me to begin on." "To begin on!" he raged, pacing the floor violently. "What do you mean by _begin on_? Is this another secret? As for your money, I know nothing about that either. I’m continually being slapped in the face with something or other that you’ve kept in the dark. But what’s a little deceit among lovers?" "I’ve never deceived you," she said, growing bitter as she went on. "In any case, deceiving you would be a trifle compared with the crime of deceiving myself." "Deceiving yourself?" "Yes. Do you suppose I could ever have lived with you, without first thoroughly deceiving myself?" Claude’s anger cooled at this bitter question. Janet was now worked up, and anything was better than the killing indifference she had so far maintained. He closed her valise and sat down on it, at her side. "Janet," he pleaded, "you were never like this before. So unyielding, so cold. And I had planned that we’d make a gala night of it. Look at these lovely flowers. Don’t you understand their symbolism? I’m going to do the right thing. I mean to marry you now, here in Brussels, at once!" "You’ve offered to do that before." "Yes, but I really mean it this time." "And I really meant it Claude, every time I refused. You see, I always assumed that your offers were made in good faith." "You are making a fool of me." "No one can do that but yourself." He got up abruptly and stood there nonplused, while she calmly went on packing. He hated her for it. She was rude, inflexible, callous. Her motives were unfathomable. She was never twice the same. Yet at this moment he believed he wanted her more passionately than he had ever wanted her before. He burst into suspicion. "What’s the real reason, Janet? Some one has written to you—Robert, I dare say?" He took her silence for an affirmation.