"That was easily believed, Selma——"

"Then you grant I wasn't acting—when I gave myself to you?"

"I didn't think you were acting——"

"Then you were acting, because when the time came—you dropped me quite as easily as you would drop a street-cur you had been pleased to feed."

"Just there you are a bit in error. I was furiously interested, and certainly not acting altogether, until——"

"Enter—the wine," she said with a sneer.

"Yes, if you will." He was irritated for a second, having meant to say something entirely different.

"A woman so loves to hear that a man's passion for her depends upon his drinking!"

"I have always been very fond of and grateful to you. It was the whole life that the drinking carried me into—that I had such horror for when, when I became well."

"You got well very suddenly after you left me," she told him. Her huge face was livid, and her lips dry.