he could learn nothing.

"And do you send her money?" she asked.

"Ay," said Aaron. "The house is mine. And I allow her so much a week out
of the money in the bank. My mother left me a bit over a thousand when
she died."

"You don't mind what I say, do you?" said Josephine.

"No I don't mind," he laughed.

He had this pleasant-seeming courteous manner. But he really kept her
at a distance. In some things he reminded her of Robert: blond, erect,
nicely built, fresh and English-seeming. But there was a curious cold
distance to him, which she could not get across. An inward indifference
to her--perhaps to everything. Yet his laugh was so handsome.

"Will you tell me why you left your wife and children?--Didn't you love
them?"

Aaron looked at the odd, round, dark muzzle of the girl. She had had her
hair bobbed, and it hung in odd dark folds, very black, over her ears.

"Why I left her?" he said. "For no particular reason. They're all right
without me."

Josephine watched his face. She saw a pallor of suffering under its
freshness, and a strange tension in his eyes.

"But you couldn't leave your little girls for no reason at all--"

"Yes, I did. For no reason--except I wanted to have some free room round
me--to loose myself--"

"You mean you wanted love?" flashed Josephine, thinking he said _lose_.

"No, I wanted fresh air. I don't know what I wanted. Why should I know?"

"But we must know: especially when other people will be hurt," said she.

"Ah, well! A breath of fresh air, by myself. I felt forced to feel--I
feel if I go back home now, I shall be FORCED--forced to love--or
care--or something."

"Perhaps you wanted more than your wife could give you," she said.

"Perhaps less. She's made up her mind she loves me, and she's not going
to let me off."

"Did you never love her?" said Josephine.

"Oh, yes. I shall never love anybody else. But I'm damned if I want to
be a lover any more. To her or to anybody. That's the top and bottom of
it. I don't want to CARE, when care isn't in me. And I'm not going to be
forced to it."

The fat, aproned French waiter was hovering near. Josephine let him
remove the plates and the empty bottle.

"Have more wine," she said to Aaron.

But he refused. She liked him because of his dead-level indifference to
his surroundings. French waiters and foreign food--he noticed them in
his quick, amiable-looking fashion--but he was indifferent. Josephine
was piqued. She wante