courage enough; if any of it oozes out, I may not be able to go on.
Well, I have been through the mill. Clifford was right. They say it is
a phase through which all men must pass. I say, must or not, if you
pass through it you don't come out without a stain. You're never the
same man after. Don't imagine I mean that I was brutally dissolute. I
don't want you to think worse of me than I deserve. I kept a clean
tongue in my head -- always. So do you. I never got drunk -- neither
do you. I kept a distance between myself and the women whom those
fellows were celebrating in song just now -- so do you. How much is
due in both of us to principle, and how much to fastidiousness, Rex? I
found out for myself at last, and perhaps your turn will not be long
in coming. After avoiding entanglements for just three years -- " He
looked at Rex, who dropped his head -- "I gave in to a temptation as
coarse, vulgar and silly as any I had ever despised. Why? Heaven
knows. She was as vulgar a leech as ever fastened on a calf like
myself. But I didn't think so then. I was wildly in love with her. She
said she was madly in love with me." Braith made a grimace of such
disgust that Rex would have laughed, only he saw in time that it was
self-disgust which made Braith's mouth look so set and hard.

"I wanted to marry her. She wouldn't marry me. I was not rich, but
what she said was: `One hates one's husband.' When I say vulgar, I
don't mean she had vulgar manners. She was as pretty and trim and
clever -- as the rest of them. An artist, if he sees all that really
exists, sometimes also sees things which have no existence at all. Of
these were the qualities with which I invested her -- the moral and
mental correspondencies to her blonde skin and supple figure. She
justified my perspicacity one day by leaving me for a loathsome little
Jew. The last time I heard of her she had been turned out of a
gambling hell in his company. His name is Emanuel Pick. Is not this a