"I should not have said it if we hadn't been there--and broad day besides," she observed. He smiled his answer. "Moreover, Montague, you know that all such little demonstrations are strictly forbidden," she warned. "When will they be permitted?" he demanded, leaning close to her. "Who knows?" she answered. "Who can read the future--such a future as mine, my friend." "I will essay it," he replied. She laughed softly. "_You_, Montague!" she said. "Yes--may I try it?" She shook her head. "It wouldn't be wise. It might raise false hopes; and a football of fate hasn't any right to hopes--they are too expensive of disappointment." "How do you know what I shall read?" he asked. "You wouldn't venture to read anything that wasn't nice." "I'll read what I see," said he;--"and the first thing I see is far from nice." She regarded him a moment thoughtfully--and he waited. "What is it?" she asked finally. "It is--Porshinger!" he answered--and braced himself for the explosion. And it came--though not in the way he had anticipated. "Porshinger! Porshinger!" she cried tensely--her sensitive nostrils aquiver, her eyes flashing, her cheeks suddenly aflame. "I hate him!--I hate him! He's a beast, Montague, a beast!" "There isn't a doubt of it, sweetheart," he said soothingly. "I rejoice that you have found him out at last." "I _always_ knew it--but I didn't think he would dare try his ways with me." "What did he do, dear?" Pendleton asked--"was it at the Croydens' last night?" "Yes--in the conservatory.--He--kissed me by force--and repeated it at least half a dozen times before he released me.--I did nothing to tempt him, Montague--_absolutely nothing_!" "Except to be nice to him," Pendleton added quietly--"which _he_ isn't able to understand." "Isn't able to understand in Stephanie Lorraine--with her past!" she said bitterly. "That is the bounder in him," he explained. "He thought, because I went wrong with Amherst, that every man could be an Amherst--if he only had the opportunity!" she exclaimed. "Did he say _that_?" "He laughed and said: 'Why struggle so--no one sees us?'" "He _is_ a beast!" Pendleton gritted. "And when I did break from him, he caught me back again, saying: 'You didn't struggle so the other night with Pendleton,' and kissed me again and again, whispering:--'aren't mine just as sweet and worth as much as his?'" "My God!" cried Pendleton.--"Did he see me that night at Criss-Cross?" "I think so--at least the day after, when he came there to dine, he let me infer from what he said that he had seen--I never told you, because I might have been wrong--and I didn't want to worry you."