"On the contrary," he interrupted, with a sour sort of smile,
"pity is almost a foible with me."

"Not real pity," she answered. "Monsieur, I have lived long enough
to know what pity moves you. It is the moment's careless whim; a
pensive pleasure, a dramatic tenderness. Wholesome pity would make
you hesitate to harm others. You have no principles--"

"Pardon me, many," he urged politely, as he eyed her with
admiration.

"Ah no, monsieur; habits, not principles. Your life has been one
long irresponsibility. In the very maturity of your powers, you use
them to win to yourself, to your empty heart, a girl who has tried
to live according to the teachings of her soul and conscience. Were
there not women elsewhere to whom it didn't matter--your abandoned
purposes? Why did you throw your shadow on my path? You are not,
never were, worthy of a good woman's love."

He laughed with a sort of bitterness. "Your sinner stands between
two fires--" he said. She looked at him inquiringly, and he added,
"the punishment he deserves and the punishment he does not deserve.
But it is interesting to be thus picked out upon the stone, however
harsh the picture. You said I influenced you--well?"

"Monsieur," she went on, "there were times when, listening to
you, I needed all my strength to resist. I have felt myself weak
and shaking when you came into the room. There was something in you
that appealed to me, I know not what; but I do know that it was not
the best of me, that it was emotional, some strange power of your