"It was pretty good of you to take me in after—I have treated you badly,
Alves. But it's no use in going back over that. I guess I was made so.
There are lots of men like that, or worse."
"I suppose so," she assented coldly.
"Why are you so stiff with me? You hardly look at me, and you touch me as if I were a piece of dirt. Supposing I take a brace and we start over, somewhere else? I am tired of knocking round. Come over and kiss me, won't you?"
Mrs. Preston paused in her work, the color mounting in her face. At first she made no reply, but as she crossed to the door, she said in a cool, distant tone:
"I don't think I shall ever kiss you again or let you touch me, if I can help it. Do you happen to remember where I saw you last—I mean before I found you in the street—six months ago?"
His face grew troubled, as if he were trying to recollect.
"Oh! that woman? Well, that's past."
"Yes, that woman. I took you here," she continued, her full voice gathering passion, "because you are helpless and an outcast. And because I had taken you before, ignorantly, I feel bound to defend you as you never defended me. But I am not bound to do more, and you have sense enough—"
"You were ready enough to bind yourself, if I remember."
She answered meekly: