thing. I am very, very old;
very tired."

He said no more. She sat listlessly watching the dusk-moths hovering
among the pinks. Far away in the darkness rockets were rising, spraying
the sky with fire; faint strains of music came from the forest.

"Their Fete Galante has begun," she said. "Am I detaining you too long,
Duane?"

"No."

She smiled: "It is rather amusing," she observed, "my coming to you for
my morals--to you, Duane, who were once supposed to possess so few."

"Never mind what I possess," he said, irritated. "What sort of advice do
you expect?"

"Why, moral advice, of course."

"Oh! Are you on the verge of demoralisation?"

"I don't know. Am I?... There is a man----"

"Of course," he said, coming as near a sneer as he was capable. "I know
what you've done. You've nearly twisted poor Grandcourt's head off his
honest neck. If you want to know what I think of it, it's an abominable
thing to do. Why, anybody can see that the man is in love with you, and
desperately unhappy already, I told you to let him alone. You promised,
too."

He spoke rapidly, sharply; she bent her fair head in silence until he
ended.

"May I defend myself?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Then--I did not mean to make him care for me."

"You all say that."

"Yes; we are not always as innocent as I happen to be this time. I
really did not try, did not think, that he was taking a little
unaccustomed kindness on my part so seriously ... I overdid it; I'd been
beastly to him--most women are rude to Delancy Grandcourt, somehow or
other. I always was. And one day--that day in the forest--somehow
something he said opened my eyes--hurt me.... And women are fools to
believe him one. Why, Duane, he's every inch a man--high-minded,
sensitive, proud, generous, forbearing."

Duane turned and stared at her; and to her annoyance the blood mounted
to her cheeks, but she went on:

"Of course he has affected me. I don't know how it might have been with
me if I were not so--so utterly starved."

"You mean to say you are beginning to care for Delancy Grandcourt?"

"Care? Yes--in a perfectly nice way----"

"And otherwise?"

"I--don't know. I am honest with you, Duane; I don't know. A--a little
devotion of that kind"--she tried to laugh--"goes to my head, perhaps.
I've been so long without it.... I don't know. And I came here to tell
you. I came here to ask you what I ought to do."

"Good Lord!" said Duane, "do you already care enough