"Your rings!" he said--"Yes--I forgot them! Wonderful rings!--emblems of your inordinate vanity and vulgar wealth--I forgot them! How they sparkle in this wide moonlight, don't they? Just a drifting of nature's refuse matter, turned into jewels for women! Strange ordinance of strange elements! There!" and he let her hands go free--"They are not injured, nor are you."

She was silent pouting her under-lip like a spoilt child, and rubbing one finger where a ring had dinted her flesh.

"So you actually think I have coma here to get away from YOU?" he went on--"Well for once your ineffable conceit is mistaken. You think yourself a personage of importance--but you are nothing,--less than nothing to me, I never give you a thought--I have come here to study--to escape from the crazy noise of modern life--the hurtling to and fro of the ma.s.ses of modern humanity,--I want to work out certain problems which may revolutionise the world and its course of living--"

"Why revolutionise it?" she interrupted--"Who wants it to be revolutionised? We are all very well as we are--it's a breeding place and a dying place--voila tout!"

She gave a French shrug of her shoulder and waved her hands expressively. Then she pushed back her flowing hair,--the moonbeams trickled like water over it, making a network of silver on gold.

"What did you come here for?" he asked, abruptly.

"To see you!" she answered smilingly--"And to tell you that I'm 'on the war-path' as they say, taking scalps as I go. This means that I'm travelling about,--possibly I may go to Europe--"

"To pick up a bankrupt n.o.bleman!" he suggested.

She laughed.

"Dear, no! Nothing quite so stupid! Neither n.o.blemen nor bankrupts attract me. No! I'm doing a scientific 'prowl,' like you. I believe I've discovered something with which I could annihilate you--so!" and she made a round O of her curved fingers and blew through it--"One breath!--from a distance, too! and hey presto!--the bear-man on the hills of California eating bread and milk is gone!--a complete vanishing trick--no more of him anywhere!" The bear-man, as she called him, gloomed upon her with a scowl.

"You'd better leave such things alone!" he said, angrily--"Women have no business with science."

"No, of course not!" she agreed--"Not in men's opinion. That's why they never mention Madame Curie without the poor Monsieur! SHE found radium and he didn't,--but 'he' is always first mentioned."

He gave an impatient gesture.

"Enough of all this!" he said--"Do you know it's nearly ten o'clock at night?--I suppose you do know!--and the people at the Plaza--"

"THEY know!"--she interrupted, nodding sagaciously--"They know I am rich--rich--rich! It doesn't matter what I do, because I am rich! I might stay out all night with a bear-man, and n.o.body would say a word against me, because I am rich! I might sit on the roof of the Plaza and swing my legs over the visitors' windows and it would be called 'charming' because I am rich! I can appear at the table d'hote in a bath-wrap and eat peas with a hair-pin if I like--and my conduct will be admired, because I am rich! When I go to Europe my photo will be in all the London pictorials with the grinning chorus-girls, because I am rich! And I shall be called 'the beautiful,' 'the exquisite'--'the fascinating' by all the unwashed penny journalists because I am rich!

O-ooh!" and she gave a comic little screw of her mouth and eyes--"It's great fun to be rich if you know what to do with your riches!"

"Do YOU?" he enquired, sarcastically.

"I think so!" here she put her head on one side like a meditative bird and her wonderful hair fell aslant like a golden wing--"I amuse myself--as much as I can. I learn all that can be done with greedy, stupid humanity for so much cash down! I would,"--here she paused, and with a sudden feline swiftness of movement came close up to him--"I would have married YOU!--if you would have had me! I would have given you all my money to play with,--you could have got everything you want for your inventions and experiments, and I would have helped you,--and then--then--you could have blown up the world and me with it, so long as you gave me time to look at the magnificent sight! And I wouldn't have married you for love, mind you!--only for curiosity!"

He withdrew from her a couple of paces,--a glimmer of white teeth between his dark moustache and beard gave his face the expression of a snarl more than a smile.

"For curiosity!" she repeated, stretching out a hand and touching his arm--"To see what the thing that calls itself a man is made of! I did my very best with you, didn't I?--uncouth as you always were and are!--but I did my best! And all Washington thought it was settled! Why wouldn't you do what Washington expected?"

The light of the moon fell full on her upturned face. It was a wonderful face,--not beautiful according to the monotonous press-camera type, but radiant with such a light of daring intelligence as to make beauty itself seem cheap and meretricious in comparison with its glowing animation. He moved away from her another step, and shook his arm free from her touch.

"Why wouldn't you?" she reiterated softly; then with a sudden ripple of laughter, she clasped her hands and uplifted them in an att.i.tude of prayer--"Why wouldn't he? Oh, big moon of California, why? Oh, pagan G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses and fauns and fairies, tell me why? Why wouldn't he?"

He gave her a glance of cool contempt.

"You should have been on the stage!" he said.

"'All the world's a stage,'" she quoted, letting her upraised arms fall languidly at her sides--"And ours is a real comedy! Not 'As You Like It' but 'As You Don't Like It!' Poor Shakespeare!--he never imagined such characters as we are! Now, suppose you had satisfied the expectations of all Washington City and married me, of course we should have bored each other dreadfully--but with plenty of money we could have run away from each other whenever we liked--they all do it nowadays!"

"Yes--they all do it!" he repeated, mechanically.

"They don't 'love' you know!" she went on--"Love is too much of a bore.

YOU would find it so!"

"I should, indeed!" he said, with sudden energy--"It would be worse than any imaginable torture!--to be 'loved' and looked after, and watched and coddled and kissed--"

"Oh, surely no woman would want to kiss you!" she exclaimed--"Never!

THAT would be too much of a good thing!"

And she gave a little peal of laughter, merry as the lilt of a sky-lark in the dawn. He stared at her angrily, moved by an insensate desire to seize her and throw her down the hill like a bundle of rubbish.

"To kiss YOU," she said, "one would have to wear a lip-shield of leather! As well kiss a bunch of nettles! No, no! I have quite a nice little mouth--soft and rosy! I shouldn't like to spoil it by scratching it against yours! It's curious how all men imagine women LIKE to kiss them! They never grasp an idea of the frequent unpleasantness of the operation! Now I'm going!"

"Thank G.o.d!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed fervently.

"And don't worry yourself"--she continued, airily--"I shall not stay long at the Plaza."

"Thank G.o.d again!" he interpolated.

"It would be too dull,--especially as I'm not shamming to be ill, like you. Besides, I have work to do!--wonderful work! and I don't believe in doing it shut up like a hermit. Humanity is my crucible!

Good-night,--good-bye!"

He checked her movement by a quick, imperious gesture.

"Wait!" he said--"Before you go I want you to know a bit of my mind--"

"Is it necessary?" she queried.

"I think so," he answered--"It will save you the trouble of ever trying to see me again, which will be a relief to me, if not to you.

Listen!--and look at yourself with MY eyes--"

"Too difficult!" she declared--"I can look at nothing with your eyes any more than you can with mine!"

"Madam--"

She uttered a little laughing "Oh!" and put her hand to her ears.

"Not 'Madam' for heaven's sake!" she exclaimed; "It sounds as if I were either a queen or a dressmaker!"

His sombre eyes had no smile in them.

"How should you be addressed?" he demanded, "A woman of such wealth and independence as you possess can hardly be called 'Miss' as if she were in parental leading-strings!"

She looked up at the clear dark sky where the moon hung like a huge silver air-ball.

"No, I suppose not!" she replied--"The old English word was 'Mistress.'

So quaint and pretty, don't you think?"

'Oh mistress mine, where are you roaming?

Oh stay and hear! your true love's coming!'