"That is unnecessary," he said quietly. "Your pitiful fear is an efficient safeguard against any further importunity. Courage is an indispensable quantity in the composition of a wolf. I have been ludicrously mistaken. May I hope that you will forgive and forget?"
"There is nothing to forgive, but neither of us must forget, again. Not ever again!" She was struggling for composure, her hard-clenched hand pressed against her heart. "I never dreamed--"
He laughed harshly. "You never dreamed that in the veins of men there could be red, as well as white corpuscles? Were there nothing but emasculates among your circle of acquaintance in the vaunted 'Four Hundred'?"
Wincing at his coarseness as though it had been a blow, she went over and leaned against the casement of the window, looking silently out at the stars. After a time he took up his sombrero and moved toward the door, pausing at the threshold to courteously bid her good night. At the sound of his voice she turned quickly.
"Wait!" She motioned to an easy chair. "Sit down, please. There is something which in justice to us both, must be said before you go." He took the seat indicated and she turned again to the window. For quite a time she stared mutely into the night, the man waiting in patient silence. When she finally spoke it was in a tone so low that he had to bend forward to catch the words.
"You were right when you said that I was afraid; but it is not convention that has made me a coward. It is of myself that I am afraid, the new, strange self that has evolved since I came here, a year ago, filled with the pitiful conceit that I knew life--and men--thoroughly.
"Remember that I lived In a different world, in an artificial and enervating atmosphere where nothing is real but Rank, nothing sweet but Station, nothing precious but Money. As a girl I was sold to the highest bidder; he gave me all that wealth and genealogy could give, and up to six months ago I kept faith. Not one of the countless men with whom I amused myself ever aroused in me even one moment's serious thought; for twelve weary years I played at the inane game of platonics, with no further effect than to come finally to regard the vaunted 'love' of the poets as a libel on human intelligence. It had been proffered me in all tongues, in all climes, at all times, by all sorts and conditions of men; at first to my listless amusement and at last to my contemptuous disgust. It was part of my strained and unnatural environment; I wore these 'loves' on my sleeve as I wore hothouse orchids on my corsage, finding their emanations as nauseous and unwholesome.