settled your score with them—if you fooled 'em I'm that much to the good. Don't stare at me like that—I know I'm not talking the way a man is supposed to talk to a girl—but, hang it, if you don't like it you can stop me quick enough–you know I'm mad about you—damn the money, there's plenty more of it—if that bothers you…I was a brute, Lily—Lily!—just look at me———"
Over and over her the sea of humiliation broke—wave crashing on wave so close that the moral shame was one with the physical dread. It seemed to her that self-esteem would have made her invulnerable—that it was her own dishonour which put a fearful solitude about her.
His touch was a shock to her drowning consciousness. She drew back from him with a desperate assumption of scorn.
"I've told you I don't understand-but if I owe you money you shall be paid———"
Trenor's face darkened to rage: her recoil of abhorrence had called out the primitive man.
"Ah—you'll borrow from Selden or Rosedale—and take your chances of fooling them as you've fooled me! Unless—unless you've settled your other scores already—and I'm the only one left out in the cold!"
She stood silent, frozen to her place. The words—the words were worse than the touch! Her heart was beat-
