on you speak of
perhaps had weight with my mother."

"You are not an easy person to say appreciative things to," Bernard
rejoined. "One is tempted to say them; but you don't take them."

The young girl colored as she listened to this observation.

"I don't think you know," she murmured, looking away. Then, "Set it down
to modesty," she added.

"That, of course, is what I have done. To what else could one possibly
attribute an indifference to compliments?"

"There is something else. One might be proud."

"There you are again!" Bernard exclaimed. "You won't even let me praise
your modesty."

"I would rather you should rebuke my pride."

"That is so humble a speech that it leaves no room for rebuke."

For a moment Miss Vivian said nothing.

"Men are singularly base," she declared presently, with a little smile.
"They don't care in the least to say things that might help a person.
They only care to say things that may seem effective and agreeable."

"I see: you think that to say agreeable things is a great misdemeanor."

"It comes from their vanity," Miss Vivian went on, as if she had not
heard him. "They wish to appear agreeable and get credit for cleverness
and tendresse, no matter how silly it would be for another person to
believe them."

Bernard was a good deal amused, and a little nettled.

"Women, then," he said, "have rather a fondness for producing a bad
impression--they like to appear disagreeable?"

His companion bent her eyes upon her fan for a moment as she opened and
closed it.

"They are capable of resigning themselves to it--for a purpose."

Bernard was moved to extreme merriment.

"For what purpose?"

"I don't know that I mean for a purpose," said Miss Vivian; "but for a
necessity."

"Ah, what an odious necessity!"

"Necessities usually are odious. But women meet them. Men evade them and
shirk them."

"I contest your proposition. Women are themselves necessities; but they
are not odious ones!" And Bernard added, in a moment, "One could n't
evade them, if they were!"

"I object to being called a necessity," said Angela Vivian. "It
diminishes one's merit."

"Ah, but it enhances the charm of life!"

"For men, doubtless!"

"The charm of life is very great," Bernard went on, looking up at the
dusky hills and the summer stars, seen through a sort of mist of music
and talk, and of powdery light projected from the softly lurid windows
of the gaming-rooms. "The charm of life is ext