"She got storm-stayed, the damned little fool! And I treated her like a yellow dog."
"That seems to be a specialty of yours," she said cruelly. "Treating her like a yellow dog. But she appears to like it."
"I never touched her, Kay."
"I suppose you were shut up there together for three days, and you never even kissed her."
He hesitated, then came out with the truth.
"Once. She asked for it."
But he saw that the admission was fatal. She could not believe that he would do that and not go further. She resumed her packing, folding something carefully on the bed, smoothing and straightening it. He saw that her hands were shaking.
"I'll bring her here, Kay. She'll tell you."
"She would lie. Anyhow I never want to see her again."
"Or me either, I reckon."
"I didn't say that."
"But you don't believe me."
"I can't, Tom. I want to, but I just can't."
"You're going then?"
"I must," she said desperately. "I've told you the truth. Anyhow, I'll have to have time, Tom. I have to think, and somehow I can't think here."
"You know what it means, don't you? You'll never come back. Oh, I know; you think maybe you will, but you won't. They'll get their hooks into you somehow. They'll talk you over. They'll bribe you."
And as he thought of them his old anger rose. He saw them, fat and sleek and rich, grinning over their triumph, putting their heads together behind closed doors, whispering, conspiring. Conspiring against him.
He saw her back again on the country club porch, idle, surrounded by idlers, luxurious, filling time with play, with lovers; with Herbert. His gorge rose, his voice tightened.
"Oh, no," he said. "You'll never come back. You won't want to come back. They'll get you. And if you ask me, it isn't them you're going back to. It's that fellow. And
