Now we poor devils have only our self-respect, and _it_ never forgives anything.'" Whitney laughed, reflected, laughed again.

"Yes, I must see Schulze.

Maybe--Anyhow, I'm going to Saint X--going home, or as near home as anything my money has left me." He drowsed off.

She sat watching him--the great beak, the bulging forehead, the thin, cruel lips; and everywhere in the garden of artificial flowers which formed the surface of her nature, hiding its reality even from herself, there appeared the poisonous snakes of hateful thoughts to shoot their fangs and hiss at him.

She shrank and shuddered; yet--"It's altogether his own fault that I feel this way toward him as he lies dying," she said to herself, resorting to human nature's unfailing, universally sought comforter in all trying circumstances--self-excuse.
"He always was cold and hard.