upon them before they disperse. Dare you try it?"

"Whatever I do," he returned smilingly, "I shall always be grateful to
you for giving me this opportunity of seeing you again AS YOU WERE. Make
my excuses to your husband. Good-night."

"Clarence!"

But he had already closed the door behind him. His face did not relax
its expression nor change as he looked again at the tray with its broken
viands before the door, the worn, stained hall carpet, or the waiter who
shuffled past him. He was apparently as critically conscious of them and
of the close odors of the hall, and the atmosphere of listless decay and
faded extravagance around him, as before the interview. But if the woman
he had just parted from had watched him she would have supposed he still
utterly disbelieved her story. Yet he was conscious that all that he saw
was a part of his degradation, for he had believed every word she had
uttered. Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw
the central truth--that he had been deceived--not by his wife, but by
himself! He had suspected all this before. This was what had been really
troubling him--this was what he had put aside, rather than his faith,
not in her, but in his ideal. He remembered letters that had passed
between her and Captain Pinckney--letters that she had openly sent to
notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to remain at the Rancho;
the innuendoes and significant glances of friends which he had put
aside--as he had this woman's message! Susy had told him nothing new of
his wife--but the truth of HIMSELF! And the revelation came from people
who he was conscious were the inferiors of himself and his wife. To an
independent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating stroke.