“It’s--it’s--pretty hard even to think of,” he answered. “But, Uncle Jim,” she urged in the egotism of her pain, blind to all else, “I _can’t_ stay here. It’s too much. You must guess how I feel.” “I can guess,” he answered, nodding. “I can’t bear it. I can’t stand it. If I could die it would be all right, but I can’t even die. I’ve got to go on living, and if I stay here I’ve got to go on hearing everybody talking about them and saying how happy they are. Every time I go out I run the risk of meeting them, of seeing them together, with Jerry looking at her the way he used to look at me.” She spoke quietly, staring at the window before her with steady eyes. “June,” he said almost roughly, “I want to talk sensibly to you. All the traveling in Europe won’t make you feel better if you don’t make an effort to shake yourself free of all this. Now listen--Barclay’s shown you what he is. He’s a blackguard. I told it to you three years ago, and you know it now by your own experience. Why do you love him? Why do you go on caring for a dog like that? I--I--upon my word, dearest, if it was any girl but you I’d be ashamed of her.” “You don’t love a man because he’s good, or noble, or any of those things. It’s not a thing you reason about. It’s something that steals into you and takes possession of you. I know what Jerry is. I suppose it’s all true what you say. He may be different from what I thought he was. He may be cruel and unkind to me. But that won’t make me change.” “But good God, he’s treated you like a dog--thrown you over for a girl with money, made surreptitious love to you when he was bound to a woman he’d ruined and whose husband was his friend! Heavens, June, you can’t love a dirty scrub like that! You’re a good girl--honest and high-minded--you can’t go on caring for him when you see now what he is!” “Oh, Uncle Jim, dear, you can’t change me by talking that way. Women don’t love men with their reason, they love them with their hearts. The Jerry that I know is not the Jerry that you know. There are two, and they’re quite different. The Jerry that I know and used to meet in the plaza on Turk Street, was always kind and sweet to me, and I used to be so happy when I was with him! I know now they’re both true. I guess yours is as true as mine. But even if it is, I care just the same. There’s no arguing or convincing--only just that fact.” “After he’s made a public show of you and engaged himself to Mercedes not two months after Mrs. Newbury’s death? Such a dirty record! Such a mean, cold-blooded, calculating cur! Oh, June, where’s your pride?” “Dead,” she said bitterly, “dead long ago.” She suddenly sat upright, turned on him, and spoke with somber vehemence: