"Oh!

I said important."

But he did not argue the question; and she leaned forward, broke a rose from its stem, then sank back a little way among the cushions, looking at him, idly inhaling the hothouse perfume.

"Why have you so ostentatiously avoided me, Mr. Siward?" she asked languidly.

"Well, upon my word!" he said, with a touch of irritation.

"Oh, you are so dreadfully literal!" she shrugged, brushing her straight, sensitive nose with the pink blossom; "I only said it to give you a chance.

If you are going to be stupid, good night!" But she made no movement to go.

"Yes, then; I have avoided you. And it doesn't become you to ask why."

"Because I kissed you?"

"You hint at the true reason so chivalrously, so delicately," she said, "that I scarcely recognise it." The cool mockery of her voice and the warm, quick colour tinting neck and face were incongruous. He thought with slow surprise that she was not yet letter-perfect in her role of the material triumphant over the spiritual. A trifle ashamed, too, he sat silent, watching the silken petals fall one by one as she slowly detached them with delicate, restless lips.

"I am sorry I came," she said reflectively. "You don't know why I came, do you? Sheer loneliness, Mr. Siward; there is something of the child in me still, you see. I am not yet sufficiently resourceful to take it out in a quietly tearful obligato; I never learned how to produce tears.

So I came to you." She had stripped the petals from the rose, and now, tossing the crushed branch from her, she leaned forward and broke from its stem a heavy, perfumed bud, half unfolded.

"It seems my fate to pa.s.s my life in bidding you good night," she said, straightening up and turning to him with the careless laughter touching mouth and eyes again. Then, resting her weight on one hand, her smooth, white shoulder rounded beside her cheek, she looked at him out of humourous eyes:

"What is it that women find so attractive in you? The man's experienced insouciance? The boy's unconscious cynicism? The mystery of your self-sufficiency? The faulty humanity in you? The youth in you already showing traces of wear that hint of future scars? What will you be at thirty-five? At forty?

Ah," she added softly, "what are you now? For I don't know, and you cannot tell me if you would.

Out of these little windows called eyes we look at one another, and study surfaces, and try to peep into neighbours' windows. But all is dark behind the windows--always dark, in there where they tell us souls hide."

She laid the sh.e.l.l-pink bud against her cheek that matched it, smiling with wise sweetness to herself.

"What counts with you?" he asked after a moment.

"Counts? How?"

"In your affections. What prepossesses you?"

She laughed audaciously: "Your traits--some of them--all of them that you reveal. You must be aware of that much already, considering everything--"

"Then, what is it I lack? Where do I fail?"

"But you don't lack--you don't fail! I ask nothing more of you, Mr.

Siward."

"A man from whom a woman desires nothing is already convicted of insufficiency.

You would recognise this very quickly if I made love to you."

"Is that the only way I am to discover your insufficiency, Mr. Siward?"

"Or my sufficiency.

Have you enough curiosity to try?"

"Oh! I thought you were to try." Then, quickly: "But I think you have already experimented; and I did not notice your shortcomings. So there is no use in pursuing that line of investigation any farther--is there?"

And always with her the mischief lay in the trailing upward inflection; in the confused sweetness of her eyes, and their lovely uncertainty.

One slim white hand held the rose against her cheek; the other lay idly on her knee, fresh and delicate as a fallen petal; and he laid both hands over it and lifted it between them.

"Mr. Siward, I am afraid this is becoming a habit with you." The gay mockery was not quite genuine; the curve of lips too sensitive for a voice so lightly cynical.

He smiled, bending there, considering her hand between his; and after a moment her muscles relaxed, and bare round arm and hand lay abandoned to him.

"Quite flawless--perfect," he said aloud to himself.

"Do you--read hands?"

"Vaguely." He touched the smooth palm: "Long life, clear mind, and"--he laughed--"heart supreme over reason! There is written a white lie--but a pretty one."

"It is no lie."

He laughed again, unconvinced.

"It is the truth," she said, seriously insisting and bending sideways above her own hand where it lay in his. "It is a miserable confession to admit it, but I'm afraid intelligence would fight a losing battle with heart if the conflict ever came. You see, I know, having n.o.body to study except myself all these years.

There is the proof of it--that selfish, smooth contour, where there should be generosity. Then, look at the tendency of imagination toward mischief!" She laid her right forefinger on the palm of the left hand which he held, and traced the developments arising in the Mount of Hermes. "Is it not a horrid hand, Mr. Siward? I don't know how much you know about palms, but--" She suddenly flushed, and attempted to close her hand, doubling the thumb over. There was a little half-hearted struggle, freeing one of his arms, which fell, settling about her slender waist; a silence, a breathless moment, and he had kissed her. Her lips were warm, this time.

She recovered herself, avoiding his eyes, and moved backward, shielding her face with pretty upflung elbows out-turned. "I told you it was becoming a habit with you!" The loud beating of her pulses marred her voice. "Must I establish a dead-line every time I commit the folly of being alone with you?"

"I'll draw that line," he said, taking her in his arms.

"I--I beg you will draw it quickly, Mr. Siward."

"I do; it pa.s.ses through your heart and mine!"

"Is--do you mean a declaration--again? You are compromising yourself, you know. I warn you that you are committing yourself."

"So are you. Look at me!"

In his arms, her own arms pressed against his breast, resisting, she raised her splendid youthful eyes; and through and through her shot pulse on pulse, until every nerve seemed aquiver.

"While I'm still sane," he said with a dry catch in his throat, "before I tell you that I love you, look at me."

"I will, if you wish," she said with a trembling smile, "but it is useless--"

"That is what I shall find out in time.

You must meet my eyes. That is well; that is frank and sweet--"

"And useless--truly it is.

Please don't tell me--anything."

"You will not listen?"