or you, I don't know how I should exist in Muktiarbad!" she
cooed.

"Your husband would not like to hear you say that!" he remarked studying
her curiously.

"He has to be away so much that I might have died of _ennui_ if you
hadn't taken pity on me!" she pouted.

Dalton was not ready with pretty speeches; it involved too much effort
to make up insincerities, but he acknowledged that the drives had given
him a great deal of pleasure. It was so difficult to rouse him to
enthusiasm, and he was so complacently cynical, that Joyce took a
delight in probing his silences and getting at his thoughts.

"Don't you ever really enjoy yourself?" she roguishly asked, her head on
one side and arch mischief in her eyes.

"I've just said so, haven't I?"

"But you don't mean it. I wish I could understand you and all there is
behind that grudging smile--what you think of people--me, for instance."

"I think if I were an artist I should like to paint a picture of
you--you are so amazingly good to look at," he returned daringly.

Joyce coloured. She had asked for frankness and could not quarrel with
him for having answered her bluntly. On the whole she was rather
pleased, than otherwise, that he should admire her, for where was the
use of being pretty if one's friends did not show that they appreciated
the fact. So she beamed on him wholly unconscious of flirting and
rallied him still further on his reserve.

"I don't want to be your model, but your friend. You treat me too much
as a child and never give me any confidence. Today, after all these
months, what do I know of you?"

"You know at least that I am very much at your service. Isn't that so?"

"You are very kind--and all that, but friends talk openly to each other.
I know nothing of you, and I _do_ know everything you could say would be
so interesting," she sighed. "For instance, why are you never really
happy?"

"I have forgotten the way," he said coolly. "Perhaps I have learned too
much of life and have lost interest in it. You don't laugh when you
can't see the joke, do you?"

"No."

"Nor do I. I see no joke in life worth enjoying, so I have forgotten
what pleasure is."

"Can't you tell me all about it?" She pleaded.

"It's an ugly story and not for your ears. But it played the devil with
me for good and all," said he grimly.

"I am so sorry," she cried sincerely shocked and grieved. "I thought you
must have had a bad time to look and act as you do. Poor you!"