gue?' she asked, touching her bunch of charms.

He acted his despair.

'Besides, what does it matter? I know who _you_ are,' she went on.
'Let that console you.'

'Did I say you were adorable? You're hateful.'

'What's in a name? Nothing but the power to compromise. Would you have
me compromise myself more than I've done already? A woman who makes a
man's acquaintance without an introduction, and talks about love, and
smokes cigarettes, with him!' She gave a little shudder. 'How horrible
it sounds when you state it baldly.'

'One must never state things baldly. One must qualify. It's the
difference between Truth and mere Fact. Truth is Fact qualified. You
must add that the woman knew the man by common report to be of the
highest possible respectability, and that she saw for herself he was
(alas!) altogether harmless. And then you must explain that the affair
took place in the country, in the spring; and that the cigarettes were
the properest conceivable sort of cigarettes, having been rolled by
hand in England.'

'You wouldn't believe me if I said I had never done such a thing
before? They all say that, don't they?'

'Yes, they all say that. But, oddly enough, I do believe you.'

'Then you're not entirely lost to grace, not thoroughly a cynic.'

'Oh, there are _some_ good women.'

'And some good men?'

'Possibly. I've never happened to meet one.'

'The eye of the beholder!'

'If you like. But I don't know. There are such things, no doubt, as
cynics by temperament; congenital cynics. Then, indeed, you may cry:
The eye of the beholder. But others become cynics, are driven into
cynicism, by sad experience. I started in life with the rosiest faith
in my fellow-man. If I've lost it, it's because he's always behaved
shabbily to me, soon or late; always taking some advantage. The
struggle for existence! We're all beasts, who take part in it; we must
be, or we're devoured. Women for the most part are out of it. Anyhow,
_plus je vois les hommes, plus j'aime les femmes_.'

'Are you a beast too?'

'Oh, yes. But I don't bite. I'm the kind of beast that runs away. I
lie by the fire and purr, but at the first sign of trouble I jump for
the open door. That's why the other fellows always got the better of
me. They knew I was a coward, and profited by the knowledge. If my
dear good uncle hadn't died, I don't know how I should have lived.'

'I'm afraid you have "lived" too much.'

'That was uncalled for.'

'Or els