to primitive facts. And this ruthless destruction of his last illusion left him angry and humiliated.
"You don't know what you are saying."
"I didn't want to say it, but it's true."
"Then I wish you would tell me something," he said. "It doesn't pay, where a girl's concerned, to be decent and honest, does it? A man can go along doing his best, and then some handsome good-for-nothing can come along and steal all he has worked to earn; can rob his house and wreck his life! What's the use of it?"
"I don't know," she said helplessly. "I suppose the world couldn't go on without men like you—and father. I've tried to think it out. I don't know, but—of course it pays to be decent."
"It hasn't paid me."
She did not answer that. She made a quick impatient movement.
"Why, when a man comes along who is different, should you immediately say that he is an outsider and must be yellow? Tom's ways may not be your ways, but he is a man, no matter what you may think. Oh, I know what you think," as he made a gesture. "I know, because you and I have been trained in the same school. How a thing is done is more important than the thing itself, I daresay I shall have to fight that all my life. But I am going to fight it. Don't make any mistake about that."
But there was a vein of obstinacy in Herbert.
"The way a thing is done counts too; the small amenities of life are what makes it possible, for our kind anyhow," he said doggedly. "Don't sneer at them, Kay. You're in love now; maybe you think you won't miss all that, but you will. And when that time comes"
"I can come back, I suppose, and be forgiven!"
"You can come back to me," he told her, going pale.
"Good God, Kay," he added. "You have dragged me in the dirt, and still I can say that to you! Some day you will know how much that means. I have my pride, although you may not think so, but I suppose there is such a thing as caring too much to remember pride."
