if with calculated carrying power, "that a woman who is ambitious must be prepared to pay the price demanded—her heart, her soul—if need be—herself!"
She plumped out the last word ruthlessly, and broke into a half-tipsy laugh that had in it a suggestion unmistakable as much as to say:
"You understand now, don't you, Gustav Litschi? You realize what I am offering to the man who buys me opportunity?"
Her heart—her soul—herself! Hampstead, having started up, sat down again weakly, the cold sweat of horror standing out upon his brow.
So this was what she had meant all the time in her speech about the calculating life. She could not give herself up to love him or any one, because she was dangling herself as a final lure to the man who would give her opportunity.
"Why, this woman was spiritually—morally—potentially, a—" he could barely let himself think the hateful word. To utter it was impossible.
Perhaps she was worse! A choking, burning sensation was in his throat. He tore at it with his hands, gasping for breath. He wanted to tear at the curtain—at the woman! How he hated her! She had no longer any fineness. She was a coarse, designing, reckless—prostitute! There! In his agony, the word was out. He sent it hurtling across the stage of his own brain. It flew straight. It found its mark upon the face of his love and stuck there blotched and quivering, biting into the picture like acid. It ate out the eyes of Marien Dounay from his mind; it ate away her pliant ruby lips, her cheeks and her soft round chin, and it left of that face only a grinning hideousness from which John Hampstead shrank with a horrible sickness in his heart.
At this moment the curtain rings clicked sharply under
