to let me drift past you
out to sea--after all?"

"What else can I do? Besides, you are not going to drift."

"Yes, I am. You were very nice to me yesterday."

"It was you who were very sweet to me.... But I told you how matters
stand. You care for your husband."

"Yes, you did tell me. But it is not true. I thought about it all night
long; I find that I do not care for him--as you told me I did."

He said, smiling: "Nor do you really care for me."

"I could care."

Her hands still lay lightly on his shoulders; he smilingly disengaged
them, saluted the finger tips, and swung them free.

"No, you couldn't," he said--"nor could I."

She clasped her hands behind her, confronting him with that gaily
audacious allure which he knew so well:

"Does a man really care whether or not he is in love with a woman before
he makes love to her?"

"Do you want an honest answer?"

"Please."

"Well, then--if she is sufficiently attractive, a man doesn't usually
care."

"Am I sufficiently attractive?"

"Yes."

"Then--why do you hesitate?... I know the rules of the game. When one
wearies, the other must pretend to.... And then they make their adieux
very amiably.... Isn't that a man's ideal of an affair with a pretty
woman?"

He laughed: "I suppose so."

"So do I. You are no novice, are you--as I am?"

"Are you a novice, Rosalie?"

"Yes, I am. You probably don't believe it. It is absurd, isn't it,
considering these lonely years--considering what he has done--that I
haven't anything with which to reproach myself."

"It is very admirable," he said.

"Oh, yes, theoretically. I was too fastidious--perhaps a little bit too
decent. It's curious how inculcated morals and early precepts make
mountains out of what is really very simple travelling. If a woman
ceases to love her husband, she is going to miss too much in life if
she's afraid to love anybody else.... I suppose I have been afraid."

"It's rather a wholesome sort of fear," he said.

"Wholesome as breakfast-food. I hate it. Besides, the fear doesn't exist
any more," shaking her head. "Like the pretty girls in a very popular
and profoundly philosophical entertainment, I've simply got to love
somebody"--she smiled at him--"and I'd prefer to fall honestly and
disgracefully in love with you--if you'd give me the opportunity." There
was a pause. "Otherwise," she concluded, "I shall content myself with
doing a mischief to your sex where I can. I give you the cho