he stars were coming out.

What was he? A genius or a clown? A creature to spread a buttered slide
or a man to climb to heaven? A fine, free child of Nature, who did,
freshly, what he would, regardless of the strained discretion
of others, or a futile, scheming hypocrite, screaming after forced
puerilities, without even a finger on the skirts of originality?

It was a problem for lonely woman's debate. Winifred strove to weigh it
well. In Bluebeard's Chamber Eustace had cut many capers. This activity
she had expected--had even wished for. And at first she had been amused
and entertained by the antics, as one assisting at a good burlesque,
through which, moreover, a piquant love theme runs. But by degrees she
began to feel a certain stiffness in the capers, a self-consciousness in
the antics, or fancied she began to feel it, and instead of being always
amused she became often thoughtful.

Whimsicality she loved. Buffoonery she possibly, even probably, could
learn to hate.

Of Eustace's love for her she had no doubt. She was certain of his
affection. But was it worth having? That depended, surely, on the nature
of the man in whom it sprang, from whom it flowed. She wanted to be sure
of that nature; but she acknowledged to herself, as she sat by the fire,
that she was perplexed. Perhaps even that perplexity was merciful. Yet
she wished to sweep it away. She knit her brows moodily, and longed for
a secret divining-rod that would twist to reveal truth in another.
For truth, she thought, is better than hidden water-springs, and a
sincerity--even of stupidity--more lovely than the fountain that gives
flowers to the desert, wild red roses to the weary gold of sands.

The wind roared again, howling to poor, shuddering Mayfair, and there
came a step outside. Eustace sprang in upon Winifred's council, looking
like a gay schoolboy, his cheeks flushed, his lips open to speak.

"Dreaming?" he said.

She smiled.

"Perhaps."

"That concert paralyzed me. Too much Beethoven. I wanted Wagner.
Beethoven insists on exalting you, but Wagner lets you revel and feel
naughty. Winnie, d'you hear the wind?"

"Could I help it?" she asked.

"Does it suggest something to you?"

He looked at her, and made his expression mischievous, or meant to make
it. She looked up at him, too.

"Yes, many things," she said--"many, many things."

"To me it suggests kites."

"Kites?"

"Yes. I'm going to fly one now in the Park. The stars are out