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“You did! you did! you did! Now! You know you did! You told me that! You told me you despised girls like me!”

“I said I despised women who had no object in life but dress,” he replied, rather soberly.

“But you were hopping on me; you meant me, now! You can’t deny it! You despise me, I know you do!” She challenged his flattery in her pouting self-depreciation.

The young man tried to stop her in her course, to change her mood, which was descending to real feeling. His low words were lost in the rumble of the car.

“Yes, yes, try to smooth it over; but you can’t fool me any more. But I don’t want you to flatter me and lie to me the way Judge Stearns did,” she added, with a sudden change of manner. “I like you because you’re straight.”

The phrase with which she ended seemed to take on a new meaning, uttered by those red lips in childish pout.

“Now, why are you down on the judge? I don’t see,” said the man, as if she had gone back to an old attack.

“Well, if you’d seen what I have, you’d understand.” She turned away and looked out of the window. “Oh, this terrible country! I’d die out here in six weeks. I know I should.”

The young lawyer was not to be turned aside.

“Of course, I’m pleased to have you throw the judge over and employ me, but, all the same, I think you do him an injustice. He’s a good, square man.”

“Square man!” she said, turning to him with a sudden fury in her eyes. “Do you call it square for a man–married, and gray-haired, too–to take up with a woman like Mrs. Shellberg? Say, do you, now?”

“Well, I don’t quite believe–“

“Oh, I lie, do I?” she cried, with another swift change to reproach. “You can’t take my word for Mrs. Shellberg’s visits to his office.”

“But he was her lawyer.”

“But you know what kind of a woman she is! She didn’t need to go there every day or two, did she? What did he always receive her in his private office for? Come, now, tell me that!”

“I don’t know that he did,” persisted the lawyer.

A sort of convulsion passed over her face, her little hands clinched, and the tears started into her eyes. Her voice was very quiet.

“You think I lie, then?”

“I think you are mistaken, just as other jealous women have–“

“You think I’m jealous, do you?”

“You act like a jeal–“

“Jealous of that gray-haired old wretch? No, sir! I–I–” She struggled to express herself. “I liked him, and I hated to lose all my faith in men. I thought he was good and honest when he prayed–Oh, I’ve seen him pray in church, the old hypocrite!” Her fury returned at the recollection.

Her companion’s face grew grave. The smile went out of his eyes, leaving them dark and sorrowful.

“I understand you now,” he said, at last. She turned to look at him. “My practice in the divorce business out here has almost destroyed my faith in women. If it weren’t for my wife and sister–“

She broke in eagerly: “Now I know you know what I mean. Sometimes I think men are–devils!” She thrust this word forth, and her little face grew dark and strained. “But the judge kept me from thinking–I never loved my father; he didn’t care for me; all he wanted to do was to make ten thousand barrels of beer a year and sell it; and the judge seemed like a father to me till she came and destroyed my faith in him.”

“But–well, let Mrs. S. go. There are lots of good men and pure women in the world. It’s dangerous to think there aren’t–especially for a handsome young woman like you. You can’t afford to keep in that kind of a mood long.”

She looked at him curiously. “That’s what I like about you,” she said, soberly. “You talk to me as if I had some sense–as if I were a human being. If you were to flatter me, now, and make love to me, I never would believe in any man again.”