"_C'est vrai_" with a shrug, "but the one lie I never tell to or of any woman is that my passion for her will be eternal, and I am long ago tired of Edith. Her innocence bores me. She urges me, too, to do precisely the things you condemn. And after all what is my crime? Simply that I am following the intelligence of the majority instead of being governed by the growls of the discontented minority, any one of whom would be glad of the chance to follow my example." "It is not with whom you side," Helen answered. "It is the simple question of having the courage of your convictions. The dry rot of hypocrisy is ruining you. I can see Peter Calvin's smirk in every brush mark of your canvas there!" For reply he threw a brush at the picture upon the easel. Then he sat upright in his cushions and faced her. "Well," he ejaculated, half-angrily, half bitterly, "you are right. You cannot scorn me half as much as I scorn myself, and have ever since I asked Edith Caldwell to marry me. I meant then to make my peace with the Philistines!" He sprang to his feet impetuously and shook himself as if to shake off some disgusting touch. "I like a comfortable home at the West End," he continued impetuously, "far better than I do dreary bachelor lodgings, now here, now there. I prefer faring sumptuously every day, to dining in an attic. Whatever else may be said of that terrible Calvin--my God! Helen, how I would like to choke him!--he certainly has plenty of money, and he patronizes me beautifully." He walked up to the easel and regarded the half-finished portrait contemptuously. "Honesty," he began again with cool irony, "is doubtless a charming thing for digestive purposes, but it is a luxury too expensive for me. The gods in this country bid for shams, and shams I purpose giving them. I am not sure I shall not go into chromos eventually. I don't enjoy this especially, but after all that is a mere matter of standards, and I have resolved to change mine, so that I shall end by enjoying or even honoring my eminently respectable self. As for art, she is a jade that can't give her lovers even a fire to sit by while they woo her. I'm sorry for her, but I don't see clearly how I can help her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with the mammon of unrighteousness--you see my orthodox education was not wholly lost upon me! _Voila tout!_ Honesty, I say, is for the most part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial good. If you despise me, _tant pis pour_--one of us; whichever you choose." He spoke defiantly, but faltered a little at the last words. She rose as he finished. "Good-by," she said. "You have taught me forever to distrust my own judgments, for I had mistaken you for a man! I am sorry that I have ever known you. You lower my respect for all the race." "But I acknowledge my faults." "Acknowledge!" she retorted in disdain. "What of that? Acknowledgment is not reparation, though many try to make it so."