want to buy Roya-Neh," she mused, biting into an
enormous strawberry, "I can do it.... All I have to do is to say that
I'll buy it.... And I can live there if I choose--as long as I
choose.... It's a very agreeable sensation.... I can have anything I
fancy, without asking Mr. Tappan.... It's rather odd that I don't want
anything."

She crossed her ankles and lay back watching the sun-moats floating.

"Suppose," she murmured with perverse humour, "that I wished to build a
bungalow in Timbuctoo ... or stand on my head, now, this very moment!
Nobody on earth could stop me.... I believe I _will_ stand on my head
for a change."

The sudden smile made the curve of her cheek delicious. She sprang to
her feet, spread her napkin on the polished floor, then gravely bending
double, placed both palms flat on the square of damask, balanced and
raised her body until the straight, slim limbs were rigidly pointed
toward heaven.

Down tumbled her hair; her cheeks crimsoned; then dainty as a lithe and
spangled athlete, she turned clean over in the air, landing lightly on
both feet breathing fast.

"It's disgraceful!" she murmured; "I am certainly out of condition. Late
hours are my undoing. Also cigarettes. I wish I didn't like to smoke."

She lighted one and strolled about the room, knotting up her dark hair,
heels clicking sharply over the bare, polished floor.

Lacking a hair-peg, she sauntered off to her own apartments to find one,
where she remained, lolling in the chaise-longue, alternately blowing
smoke rings into the sunshine and nibbling a bonbon soaked in cologne.
Only a girl can accomplish such combinations. How she ever began this
silly custom of hers she couldn't remember, except that, when a small
child, somebody had forbidden her to taste brandied peach syrup, which
she adored; and the odour of cologne being similarly pleasant, she had
tried it on her palate and found that it produced agreeable sensations.

It had become a habit. She was conscious of it, but remained indifferent
because she didn't know anything about habits.

So all that sunny afternoon she lay in the chaise-longue, alternately
reading and dreaming, her scented bonbons at her elbow. Later a maid
brought tea; and a little later Duane Mallett was announced. He
sauntered in, a loosely knit, graceful figure, still wearing his
riding-clothes and dusty boots of the morning.

Geraldine Seagrave had had time enough to discover, during the past
winter,