personality, even in silence, wove an aura of subtle magic about
her. She wore at her breast several hot-house orchids. They were pale
and exotic, quick wilting and artificial. Already the edges of their
petals were curling and darkening. Was she like them? Could she have
carried her splendid shoulders with the same grace through jungles and
over mountains? Could she bloom with the wild splendor of those other
orchids in the sterner environment of God's great out-of-doors?

She smiled as she questioned me.

"You are sceptical of my power to understand things, aren't you?"

"I was wondering," I answered, "just what you meant by it."

"I meant," she said slowly, as her eyes clouded again with that
wistfulness which had a few moments before cost me my self-control,
"that civilized women lead even narrower lives than civilized men.
Maybe they feel even more strongly than men the longing for wider, freer
things."

"But in these times," I inanely suggested, struggling to maintain the
pretense of conversation, "woman has a full measure of liberty."

She tossed her head with an airy contempt for my reasoning and bent her
eyes for a moment on the tip of her satin slipper. "About as much as a
canary in a cage," she announced, "and we are expected to sing joyously
for our cuttle bone and hemp seed. I wonder that it never seems to occur
to you men that we women may want something more than that; that we may
not be satisfied after all to hear affectionate things chirped through
the cage wires--that even human canaries may be able to conceive of some
horizon broader than a window-sill with a pot or two of geraniums to
give it color."

I loved this woman. Why in all conscience did my heart leap almost
triumphantly at the hint that she was restive in captivity? Was it
merely because it was not I who was her captor? Was it jealousy feeding
on the crumbs of a misery shared? There was a long silence.

She had been toying as she talked with a slender gold chain, and under
an involuntary emphasis of her fingers it had given way. She was now
trying to close the broken link with her teeth. I stepped forward and,
without realizing that I was doing it, caught her hand in my restraining
fingers. She looked up quickly.

"I beg your pardon," I said hastily, "but don't bite that with your
teeth."

"If I bite it at all," she replied with impervious logic, "I must bite
it with my teeth."

I took it from her and began the simple work of r