Wisdom lay in maintaining the attitude of repudiation; it would at least have afforded some excuse for her and Rotherby.

Instead, she now recklessly flung off that armor, and went naked down into the fray.
"A fig for't all!" she cried, and snapped her fingers.

She had risen, and she towered there, a lean and malevolent figure, her head-dress nodding foolishly.

"What does it matter that you be what you claim to be?
Is it to weigh with you, Rotherby ?" Rotherby turned grave eyes upon her.

He was, it seemed, not quite rotten through and through; there was still in him--in the depths of him--a core that was in a measure sound; and that core was reached.