Lorraine flung herself down on the sofa with a callous air, and beat her foot on the ground impatiently. The parting with Rod was another thing she did not propose to describe to Hal. It had hurt too badly, for one thing. “When you moralise, Hal, you are detestable. Besides, it’s so cheap. Any one can sit on a table and hurl sarcasm about. I daresay in my place you would have married Rod, from a sense of duty or something, and ruined all the rest of his life. Or perhaps, after gently breaking the news, you’d have let him come dangling round to be ‘mothered’. Well, I don’t say I haven’t been a bit of a brute to him; but anyhow I tried to do the square thing in the end. I cut the whole affair dead off. I told him I would not see him nor write to him again. I’ve since sent two letters back unopened, and though you mightn’t think it, I was just eating my heart out for a sight of him. But what’s the good! He’s got to follow in the footsteps of whole centuries of highly respectable, complacent, fat old bankers. His father and mother would have a fit if he didn’t develop into the traditional fat old banker himself, and beget another of the same ilk to follow on. “I daresay with me he would have developed a little more soul, and a little less stomach—but what of it?” with a graceful shrug. “For the good of his country it is written that he shall acquire weight and stolidity, instead of an ideal soul, and for the benefit of posterity I sentenced him to speedy rotundity, and dull respectability, and the begetting of future bankers. He will presently marry some one named Alice or Annie, and invite me to the first christening in a spirit of Christian forgiveness.” Hal smiled more soberly than was her wont. “And what of you?” “What of me?... Oh, I don’t come into that sort of scheme. I never ought to have been there at all. Still, I’m glad I showed him he’d got something in himself beside the stale accumulations of many banker ancestors; if it’s only for the sake of the next little banker, who may want to lay claim to an individual soul.” “But it hurt, Lorraine?... don’t tell me it didn’t hurt after... after—” “Oh yes, it hurt,” with a low, bitter laugh; “but what of that either? It’s generally the woman who gets hurt; but I suppose I knew I was riding for a fall.” “I don’t suppose you are any more hurt than he is. You know he worshipped you.” “Yes; only presently it will be easy for him to get back into the old, orthodox groove with ‘Alice’, and persuade himself that I was only a youthful infatuation, whereas I— Oh, what does it matter, Hal! Come out of that ‘great-aunt’ mood, and let’s be jolly while we can. I’ll ring for coffee and liqueurs, and then we’ll make lots of ripping plans to see everything in England worth seeing—until I can find time to go abroad.” Hal sprang off her table.