“But this isn’t a case, hey?” she demanded. “Well then go back to them--go back,” she repeated. At this he half-threw himself across the table to seize her hands, but she drew away and, as he came nearer, pushed her chair back, springing up. “You know you didn’t come here to tell me you’re ready to give them up.” “To give them up?” He only echoed it with all his woe at first. “I’ve been battling with them till I’m ready to drop. You don’t know how they feel--how they MUST feel.” “Oh yes I do. All this has made me older, every hour.” “It has made you--so extraordinarily!--more beautiful,” said Gaston Probert. “I don’t care. Nothing will induce me to consent to any sacrifice.” “Some sacrifice there must be. Give me time--give me time, I’ll manage it. I only wish they hadn’t seen you there in the Bois.” “In the Bois?” “That Marguerite hadn’t seen you--with that lying blackguard. That’s the image they can’t get over.” Well, it was as if it had been the thing she had got herself most prepared for--so that she must speak accordingly. “I see you can’t either, Gaston. Anyhow I WAS there and I felt it all right. That’s all I can say. You must take me as I am,” said Francie Dosson. “Don’t--don’t; you infuriate me!” he pleaded, frowning. She had seemed to soften, but she was in a sudden flame again. “Of course I do, and I shall do it again. We’re too terribly different. Everything makes you so. You CAN’T give them up--ever, ever. Good-bye--good-bye! That’s all I wanted to tell you.” “I’ll go and throttle him!” the young man almost howled. “Very well, go! Good-bye.” She had stepped quickly to the door and had already opened it, vanishing as she had done the other time. “Francie, Francie!” he supplicated, following her into the passage. The door was not the one that led to the salon; it communicated with the other apartments. The girl had plunged into these--he already heard her push a sharp bolt. Presently he went away without taking leave of Mr. Dosson and Delia. “Why he acts just like Mr. Flack,” said the old man when they discovered that the interview in the dining-room had come to an end.