re is something finer, stronger here. The
atmosphere has more nerve, the life more life. This is not a land for
the idle or vicious, pleasant as it is."

"What a thinker you are, Mrs. Falchion!"

She seemed to recollect herself suddenly. Her voice took on an
inflection of satire. "You say it with the air of a discoverer. With
Columbus and Hervey and you, the world--" She stopped, laughing softly
at the thrust, and moved the dust about with her foot.

"In spite of the sarcasm, I am going to add that I feel a personal
satisfaction in your being a woman who does think, and acts more on
thought than impulse."

"'Personal satisfaction' sounds very royal and august. It is long, I
imagine, since you took a--personal satisfaction--in me."

I was not to be daunted. "People who think a good deal and live a fresh,
outdoor life--you do that--naturally act most fairly and wisely in time
of difficulty--and contretemps."

"But I had the impression that you thought I acted unfairly and
unwisely--at such times."

We had come exactly where I wanted. In our minds we were both looking at
those miserable scenes on the 'Fulvia', when Madras sought to adjust the
accounts of life and sorely muddled them.

"But," said I, "you are not the same woman that you were."

"Indeed, Sir Oracle," she answered: "and by what necromancy do you
know?"

"By none. I think you are sorry now--I hope you are--for what--"

She interrupted me indignantly. "You go too far. You are
almost--unbearable. You said once that the matter should be buried, and
yet here you work for an opportunity, Heaven knows why, to place me at a
disadvantage!"

"Pardon me," I answered; "I said that I would never bring up those
wretched scenes unless there was cause. There is cause."

She got to her feet. "What cause--what possible cause can there be?"

I met her eye firmly. "I am bound to stand by my friend," I said. "I can
and I will stand by him."

"If it is a game of drawn swords, beware!" she retorted. "You speak to
me as if I were a common adventuress. You mistake me, and forget
that you--of all men--have little margin of high morality on which to
speculate."

"No, I do not forget that," I said, "nor do I think of you as an
adventuress. But I am sure you hold a power over my friend, and--"

She stopped me. "Not one word more on the subject. You are not to
suppose this or that. Be wise do not irritate and annoy a woman like me.
It were better to please me than to