"And at the end of two days—you didn't give it a long trial—you told him that you had only engaged yourself for an experiment, to see what it felt like, and you threw him over."
"Yes, that is true. I couldn't care for him enough."
There was a silence. At last he said, "I saw a good deal of Jensen. I did what I could to reclaim him, but he said he had no faith in man nor woman, and no motive for living. From what I could gather, he used to he a healthy-minded man, fond of sport and of work, and not disposed to take a morbid view of life. You will understand that I was naturally anxious to meet the lady who had been able to effect such a change, but besides, all that he told me about you made me feel that you would be interesting."
Elsie seemed to be strangling emotion. She spoke in a hard voice, cut once or twice with a dry sob, and with her face turned from him.
"I know what you must think of me. You must think that I am fair game for anybody. You must think that I am as bad as a woman can be. I am certainly not going to excuse myself. I only want to say that I was very young, and that I had never felt deeply about anything, and had no idea that anyone else could feel in that way. I want to say, too, that I had been brought up to think that I must marry well"
"And Jensen was very well off. Yes, I know."
"It is horrible. It is humiliating. It is utterly undignified. When I think of it my cheeks burn, and I loathe myself. Do you know," her voice dropped though she spoke with passionate vehemence, "he is the only man—except my father—who has ever kissed me? I hate him for that."
Blake uttered an exclamation of mingled surprise and sympathy. He had never dreamed of this odd kind of virginal pride in Elsie. Her curious unconventionality, her impulsive speech, all that he had heard of her had prepared him for a different sort of woman.
Elsie went on still in that hurried vehement way. "I hated him the day he did that, and I told him so. I suppose
