by a well-spoken-of Te Deum? She glanced at Heath
inscrutably, as only woman can, and knew that she was not. It was the
man himself who had caused her to fall into what she already thought of
as a mistake. There was in Heath something that almost confused her. And
she was not accustomed to be confused.

"I've made a bad beginning," she almost blurted out, not able to escape
from artifice, yet speaking truth. "And I'm generally rather good at
beginnings. It's so easy to take the first step, I think, despite that
silly saying which, of course, I'm not going to quote. It's when one is
getting to know a person really well that difficulties generally begin."

"Do they?"

"Yes, because it's then that very reserved people begin hurriedly
building barricades, isn't it? I ask you, because I'm not at all
reserved."

"But how should I know any better than you?"

"You mean, when you're so unreserved, too? No, that's true."

Heath's eyes troubled Charmian. She was feeling with every moment less
at ease in his companionship and more determined to seem at ease. Being
generally self-possessed, she had a horror of slipping into shyness and
so retrograding from her usual vantage ground. She expected him to
speak. It was his turn. But he said nothing. She felt sure that he had
seen through her last lie, and that he was secretly resenting it as a
heavy-footed approach to sacred ground. What a blunderer she was
to-night! Desperation seized her.

"We must leave the question to the reserved," she said. "Poor things! I
always pity them. They can never taste life as you and I and our kind
are able to. We are put here to try to know and to be known. I feel sure
of that. So the reserved are for ever endeavoring to escape their
destiny. No wonder they are punished!"

"I am not sure that I entirely agree with your view as to the reason why
we are put here," observed Heath, without a trace of obvious sarcasm.
Nevertheless, the mere words stung Charmian's almost childish
self-conceit.

"But I wasn't claiming to have pierced the Creator's most secret
designs!" she exclaimed. "I was simply endeavoring to state that it can
scarcely be natural for men and women to try to hide all they are from
each other. I think there's something ugly in hiding things; and
ugliness can't be meant."

"Ugliness is certainly not meant," said Heath, and for the first time
she felt as if she were somewhere not very far from him. "Except very
often by man. Isn't