200
/p>
"I care very much. If I cared less--"
"There's some other woman."
"Yes."
Flame leaped in her eyes. "I hope she poisons your life."
"I hope I haven't poisoned yours," he returned, lamely enough.
"Oh, I'll manage to live on," she gibed. "I guess there are other men in the world besides you."
"Don't make it too hard, Milly."
"You're pitying me! Don't you dare pity me!" A sob rose, and burst from her. Then abruptly she seized command over herself. "What does it all matter?" she said. "Go away now and let me change my clothes."
"Are they dry?"
"I don't care whether they're dry or not. I don't care what becomes of me now." All the sullen revolt of generations of lawlessness was vocal in her words. "You wait and see!"
Somehow Hal got out of the room, his mind awhirl, to await her downstairs. In a few moments she came, and with eyes somberly averted got into the runabout without a word. As they swung into the road, they met McGuire Ellis and Wayne, who bowed with a look of irrepressible surprise. During the ride homeward Hal made several essays at conversation. But the girl sat frozen in a white silence. Only when they pulled up at her door did she speak.
"I'm going to try to forget this," she said in a dry, hard voice. "You do the same. I won't quit my job unless you want me to."
"Don't," said Hal.
"But you won't be bothered with seeing me any more. I'll send you Maggie Breen's letter and the story. I guess I understand a little better now how she felt when she took the poison."
With that rankling in his brain, Hal Surtaine sat and pondered in his private study at home. His musings arraigned before him for judgment and contrast the two women who had so stormily wrought upon his new life. Esmé Elliot had played with his love, had exploited it, made of it a tinsel ornament for vanity, sought, through it, to corrupt him from the hard-won honor of his calling. She had given him her lips for a lure;