a toothache once."

She said, unsmiling: "Haven't you ever suffered mentally?"

"No--not seriously. Oh, I've regretted little secret meannesses--bad
temper, jealousy--"

"Nothing else? Have you never experienced deep unhappiness--through
death, for example?"

"No, thank God. My father and mother and sister are living.... It is
rather strange," he added, partly to himself, "that the usual troubles
and sorrows have so far passed me by. I am twenty-seven; there has never
been a death in my family, or among my intimate friends."

"Have you any intimate friends?"

"Well--perhaps not--in the strict sense. I don't confide."

"Have you never cared, very much, for anybody--any woman?"

"Not sentimentally," he returned, laughing. "Do you think that a good
course of modern flirtation--a thorough schooling in the old-fashioned
misfortunes of true love would inject into my canvases that elusively
occult quality they're all howling for?"

She remained smilingly silent.

"Perhaps something less strenuous would do," he said, mischievously--"a
pretty amourette?--just one of those gay, frivolous, Louis XV affairs
with some daintily receptive girl, not really improper, but only ultra
fashionable. Do you think _that_ would help some, Valerie?"

She raised her eyes, still smiling, a little incredulous, very slightly
embarrassed:

"I don't think your painting requires any such sacrifices of you, Mr.
Neville.... Are you going to take me somewhere to dinner? I'm dreadfully
hungry."

"You poor little girl, of course I am. Besides, you must be suffering
under the terrible suppression of that 'thorough talk' which you--"

"It doesn't really require a thorough talk," she said; "I'll tell you
now what I had to say. No, don't interrupt, please! I want to--please
let me--so that nothing will mar our enjoyment of each other and of the
gay world around us when we are dining.... It is this: Sometimes--once
in a while--I become absurdly lonely, which makes me a fool,
temporarily. And--will you let me telephone you at such times?--just to
talk to you--perhaps see you for a minute?"

"Of course. You know my telephone number. Call me up whenever you like."

"_Could_ I see you at such moments? I--there's a--some--a kind of
sentiment about me--when I'm _very_ lonely; and I've been foolish enough
to let one or two men see it--in fact I've been rather
indiscreet--silly--with a man--several men--now and then. A lonely girl
is easily sympathis