ch
for granted."

He knew the danger of all this--so did she. But danger of what? That
dancing upon the edge of the precipice of emotion is in the normal
heart of every woman--and he? He sought it out; to the edge he had
brought her, knowing the way--every step of it. She had only followed
blindly where he had led. Once there, she knew well the chasm on whose
edge she was balancing. Natural instinct alone would have told her
that. The height was dizzy. She had known well that if ever she gazed
down, it would be that. Her head swam with the giddiness of it. She
kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the plate before her, not daring to
look up, or meet his glance.

"Suppose you haven't taken too much for granted," he suggested
quietly.

"Well?" she raised her head--tried to look with unconcern into his
eyes--failed. Then her head dropped again.

"I should say--don't marry him--not yet--wait. The harm that is done
by waiting is measurable by inches. Wait. How old are you? Is that
rude? No--of course it isn't. It's only rude when a woman's got to
answer you with a lie. How old are you? Twenty?"

"Twenty-one."

"Twenty-one! I was fifteen when you first woke up and yelled."

She threw back her head and laughed.

"Why do you laugh?"

"You say such funny things sometimes."

"I remember the first joke I made you thought was bad taste."

She looked at him. There was excitement in her eyes. The rush of the
stream had taken her; an impulse for the moment carried her away.

"I repeated that joke afterwards," she said quickly, "the same
evening to shock Mr. Arthur."

The moment she had said it, came regret. It was showing him too
plainly the impression that he had left upon her. But he seemed not
to notice it.

"Was he shocked?" he asked.

"Yes--terribly."

She looked at her watch. That moment's regret had brought her to her
senses. The blood came quickly to her face, as she thought how
intimately they had talked within so short a time. Reviewing it--as
with a searchlight that strides across the sky--she scarcely
believed that it was true. In just an hour, she had told him as
much--more than she had told Miss Hallard. Had she changed? Was the
freedom of the life she lived altering her? She had known Mr. Arthur
for a year and a half before he had thought of speaking with any
intimacy to her. The thought that she was deteriorating--becoming
as other women--passed across her mind with a sensation of nausea.
She rose to h