She saw quite well the effect she had produced, and seemed to glisten there in a sort of phosphorescent light, sure of victory, with a triumphant expression round her mouth, for she saw that he was conquered. He felt a sudden fear. She had his soul in her pocket, and could cast it into the river or into the gutter; therefore he hated her at the same time. He saw that his only chance of safety lay in awakening a reciprocal flame in her, so that she might be as closely bound to him as he was to her. With this half-conscious purpose, he did what every man in his place would have done—insinuated himself into her confidence, made himself as little as a child and aroused her sympathy, the sympathy of a woman for a lacerated and damned soul which has no more hope of happiness. She listened to him and received his confidence as a tribute, with calm majestic motherliness, without a trace of coquetry or pleasure at hearing of another's misfortune.
When at last, after eating a cold supper, they were about to go, he rose to look up a train in a railway guide. When he returned to the table and wished to pay the bill, the waiter informed him that it had already been paid by the lady! Then he flared up, and wrongly suspecting that she thought he had no money, demanded that at any rate he should pay for himself.
"I don't know the customs of your country," he said, "but in mine a man who lets a lady pay for him is dishonoured."
"You were my guest," she answered.
"No, we went out together, and we cannot come here again. Don't you know what kind of a reputation you will give me, and by what a hateful name this waiter may call me?"
When he recalled the waiter to make good the mistake, there was another scene, so that he rose angrily and laid his share on the table. She was sad, but would not acknowledge herself in the wrong. They were both out of humour, and he noticed that she was thoughtless, just as thoughtless as when she invited a gentleman alone to her room so late in the evening. Or was it an expression of feminine independence demanding to be treated exactly like a man in spite of propriety and prejudice? Perhaps it was the latter, but he fell it to be a piece of presumption, and was angry. There threatened to be an uncomfortable silence between them as they walked home, but she put out her hand and said in a kind, confidential voice: "Don't be cross."
"No I am not that, but, but ... never do it again."
They parted as friends, and he hurried to the café. He had not been there for a long time, partly through a certain dislike to the tone prevailing there, which no longer harmonised with his present mood, and partly because he had promised his friend to be moderate. He found the usual company, but felt somewhat out of place, and made a clear resolve never to bring her there. Accordingly, he soon went home and sank in meditations which were partly gloomy and partly bright. When he recollected the moment of emergence of the youthful beauty from the fur skin of the animal there seemed to him something weird and ominous about it. It was not the youthful beauty which is clothed in reflections from a paradise of innocence, but a dark, demoniac beauty which becomes a man's death, the grave of his virile will, and which leads to humiliation, ruin, and disgraceful bargaining. But it is as inevitable and unescapable as Fate.
The next day he was invited, together with her, to dinner at an art professor's. She then appeared in a new character, talking like a woman of the world in a confident tone, firing off smart sayings and epigrams and never at a loss for an answer. At intervals she seemed indifferent, blase, and cruel.
The professor, who had just been sitting on a jury, told us that he had joined in giving a verdict of guilty against a child murderess.