is companion. The fumes of the place
seemed to circulate about her unnoticed.

"Does she understand it?" Thornton asked himself. "Is this abstraction
a mere bluff because I am a stranger? Or is she only bored?"

When she noticed that Thornton was not eating or drinking she
questioned him mutely with her eyes.

"Shall we leave?"

He nodded. She rose and opened the long window--passed out, as if
accustomed to avoid the puddles of life. She led the way to the
farther end of the veranda, where only an occasional high voice could
be heard. When she had settled herself on a lounge, she sighed
inconsequently.

"But perhaps you didn't want to come? You can go back. We always walk
about a good deal you know, and nobody will notice. You will want your
coffee and cigar; and Colonel Sparks tells amusing wicked little
stories. I will stay here, though."

"And I think I will," the young man added, simply. "It's really hot."

She opened her eyelids, which usually hung a little down as if heavy.

"It tired you too, did it? Somehow I never felt so weary from it as I
do to-night."

"Is it always just so?" he asked, bluntly.

"Why, of course; why not? There are different people. But dinner is
always the chief affair of the day in our house; you see the men are
free then and their cares are over. My father is very particular about
dinner, but it is tiresome sometimes."

Talk dropped. This line was dangerous.

"Tell me," she said again in curious inquiry; "you are not one of
Roper's set?"

"No, he is some years my junior."

"But that does not make any difference. You never belonged to Roper's
set. Isn't it very dull being a grind? Roper says you are a dig and
fearfully clever."

"One must play for something." He waived aside the compliment.

"But how do you do it? Tell me just what you do every day."

Thornton was willing to take her seriously. He sketched his humdrum
labors, the prizes in his way of life. "And it isn't so stupid," he
ended with a laugh, "to play the game that way when once you have
begun it." He added carelessly, as if to himself, "the body will give
you only a few sensations, such a very few, and so humiliatingly
inadequate."

"So _we_ live for the body," the girl said, sharply, diving into his
meaning.

"How do I know?" Thornton replied, irritated at his foolish remark.

"No you meant it; you meant it, and I suppose it is so. But one feels
the body so constantly. Neuralgia racks me, and fatigue