"This is what I've always said to myself: my poetry requires it. I must have experiences, pictures, that _frisson_, as the French say. But all that's a mere pretext. The truth is, we hunt and hunt and hunt. Your husband's not the right one. Your red-head's not the right man, and none of the rest of them--your sporting business man, or your eh-eh-lieutenant. But he must be _somewhere_! The stranger sitting at the next table, he's the one, surely. So you come to an understanding with him--after all he's _not_ the right one. It is most certainly not the fine ones. Because they take the trouble to possess us without taking the trouble to find out whether there's anything fine in us, too. So you keep on hunting. Perhaps you will meet him on the street. Finally it turns into fever, which wholly consumes you. Sometimes I can scarcely fall asleep in anticipation of the next dark evening when I shall rove about again. Now, do you see, I must be going to my ruin? When I saw your beautifully set table, all of a sudden a longing for my home and my husband came over me again. Yes, I sometimes have that longing. He has bleared eyes and he smells of carbolic acid. Oh, that vile smell! I'd like so to smell it again For all I care, he may even throw the stethoscope at me again. Besides, he wrote to me I should return to him If I want to, I can. _But_--I will remain here--and go to my ruin. Life's funny." She rose and groped for her hat and hatpins lying on the table. Lilly did not want to let her go in such a state of mind. "If you feel it is driving you to your ruin, that it's a poison in your blood, why don't you try to resist? Why don't you pluck it out of your system? Mere force of will must help some." "I've said that to myself," rejoined Mrs. Jula. "But I've never had anyone to whom I could speak about it and who could help me. Now I've found you, it will be easier for me. Now I feel I might be able to. Maybe I will." "Do you want to give me your promise?" asked Lilly, holding out her hand to her. "Yes, I promise," Mrs. Jula cried, and delightedly clapped her hand in Lilly's. "You will be my saviour. You are already. I feel it. To show my thanks I will stand guard over you and see to it that no one spoils you. You shan't get to be what I am, or the others." "Oh, I'll take care of myself," faltered Lilly.