"Why should I be? You couldn't kill me if you tried--and if you
could--"

"If I could--ah, if I could!" he muttered, fiercely.

"Why then there would be another murderer added to the general world
of murderers!" she said--"That's all! It's not worth it!"

Still he held her in his grip.

"See here!" he said--"Before you go I want yon to know a thing or
two,--you may as well learn once for all my views on women. They're
brief, but they're fixed. And they're straight! Women are nothing--
just necessary for the continuation of the race--no more. They may
be beautiful or homely--it's all one--they serve the same purpose.
I'm under no delusions about them. Without men they are utterly
useless,--mere waste on the wind! To idealise them is a stupid
mistake. To think that they can do anything original, intellectual
or imaginative is to set one's self down an idiot. YOU,--you the
spoilt only child of one of the biggest rascal financiers in New
York,--YOU, left alone in the world with a fortune so vast as to be
almost criminal--you think you are something superlative in the way
of women,--you play the Cleopatra,--you are convinced you can draw
men after you--but it's your money that draws them,--not YOU! Can't
you see that?--or are you too vain to see it? And you've no mercy on
them,--you make them believe you care for them and then you throw
them over like empty nutshells! That's your way! But you never
fooled ME,--and you never will!"

He released her as suddenly as he had grasped her,--she drew her