"I force her?" she cried furiously. "If she has taken the love of a married man, she is that already! Let her go on!" "Do you mean this?" he said sternly. "I certainly do!" "You will not give the woman I love and respect the right to be my wife--to love me honestly before the world? Do you mean this?" "I am your wife, and you shall never take that from me!" "You have never been my wife!" he cried, beside himself. "You, a pure girl, deliberately set about to win me, as a _cocote_ does! Wife? You have taken my money to pay for your pleasures and your luxuries, and you have not even been my mistress! You a moral woman!" "How dare you?" she cried, unrecognizable in her rage. "A last time. Will you permit me to get a divorce?" "No!" She uttered it as a shriek, fallen back against the wall. "Then, madam, I will force you to do it!" he exclaimed, slamming his fist on a little table with such violence that it sent a shower of books clattering to the floor. He left her clinging to the wall, choking with rage, descended to his car, and gave Dodo's address. The interview had left him in just that state of frenzy he needed to do the thing he would have hesitated long to do in his day of calm. The life that he had claimed from his wife rose up doubly precious to him for the proclaiming. He would cut off his wife without a cent; he would force her to sue him for abandonment, if not from shame, from positive necessity. Anyhow, the die was cast! He had cut away from all the old life! He would go with Dodo to-night, racing into the new, as she had wished. After a few months, a year, abroad, traveling in hidden countries, when his wife had come to her senses and procured a divorce, he would marry Dodo. They would not come back to New York, but the world was wide. Marriage exalted everything. He would not be the first so to do. Abroad, in Paris, London, Rome, such romances were understood. He jumped out and ran hastily up the stairs, knocked, and came tempestuously into the room. He saw her with hands clasped over her breast, standing tremulously sweet, swaying with fear of his coming. He held out his arms, caught her violently to him, buried his head in the cool regions of her neck, caressed by the fragrant youth of her hair, uttering but one word: "Come!" She heard it, rather frightened, alarmed, too, at the personal disorder that shook him like a leaf, alarmed at the man who had at last come to where she had wished him. She said to herself, incredulously, that she was happy--wildly, deliriously happy; and she remained quiet, passing her hands soothingly over his bent head, alert, as if listening for some sound in the air. "You will come?" he said suddenly, holding her from him. "Yes!" she said in a whisper. "Now--to-night--far off--with me?" "Yes! How has it happened?" she said breathlessly. "Why now? Why are you willing, all at once?"