“I should say,” Louis replied after due deliberation, “that it was the most selfish action you had ever done or are ever likely to do.” Then he burst into scoffing laughter: “Tit for tat over your laugh at me, my lady humbug! Oh, the pathetic quiver on your lips, your meek eyelids, and your voice cadging for my approbation. _Sacrifice!_ Ursula Barrison, what do you want to do most in all the world? Why, to run away, run away, run away. You’re thrilled by the idea of escape. In love with loneliness--you told me so yourself. Your whole being lightens and is swift to it.... Sacrifice? ‘What’s become of Waring, since he gave us all the slip? Chose land-travel, or sea-faring!’ Own up, Ursula.” Furious with him at first, she listened--snapped and yielded. “Oh, I’ll own up. It’s true. It’s all true. What--who is Waring?” “An invention of Browning’s, I suppose. It doesn’t matter much. He got fed up with the streets he knew and the friends he knew, and suddenly disappeared. They were left wondering--and talking about it. Years later, one of them, sailing on the Adriatic, caught a quick glimpse of him in a little boat, with a boy who sold wine and fruit-- “‘... Then the boat, I know not how, turned sharply round, Laying her whole side on the sea As a leaping fish does; from the lee Into the weather, cut somehow Her sparkling path beneath our bow; And so went off, as with a bound Into the rose and golden half Of the sky.... So I saw the last of Waring!’ “Well, Waring of St. Miniot, what are you going to do?” _“Give them all the slip_ ...” leapt, tingling, from Ursula. “Why do you call me selfish, Louis? Chris and Doug are complete without me--and even if I’m not making a very big sacrifice by dropping out.... My good name is something: This room and you, and leaving Doug to believe ... and divorce me. I detest squalor, and it _is_ all squalid and not very pretty: like squeezing through a dark, stale-smelling alley. But then there’s an archway. And beyond----” Her eyes were filled with the promise of sea and shining space, like the windows of the room, Christine’s room. “‘What’s become of Waring?’” she murmured, fascinated.... “And you really think you are justified----” Louis began.