ex were still asleep. He was quite
sure that, like most pretty women, she was vain and easily led, and, if
it were not himself, it would be some other fellow who would undertake
her awakening, since her husband was trustingly content to leave her
mental development to chance and nature.

Having passed the stage of desperate infatuation for mere physical
beauty, he could play at his leisure with the idea of encompassing her
ruin, as he sat beside her in his car, watching the dimples come and go.
Life had done him a bad turn at the beginning of his career, and he was
envious of men who had escaped suffering such as he had known. Out of
sheer devilry he would like to pull Meredith's house about his ears and
teach him that no woman of extraordinary physical attractions was a safe
asset as a wife. Sooner or later, vanity would be her undoing and she
would join the ranks of the fast and free. His experience was fairly
wide and his faith, _nil_. Already Joyce Meredith coquetted
delightfully. In a little while she would be doing it dangerously; by
and by, audaciously, and so on, till she developed into the accomplished
flirt, the sport of men in the East. He had watched the evolution till
he had arrived at the theory that, with time and opportunity, the
generality of women could be brought to capitulate.

This afternoon they had set out with the intention of visiting the
ruins, taking with them a rug and a tea basket for a _tete-a-tete_
picnic. At first Dalton had thought of leaving the car on the high road
and walking the rest of the way, but on second thoughts he decided to
risk the tires and springs over the bumpy ground, forcing a passage
through the obstacles in the way. Remembering the nature of the jungle,
he came prepared with the necessary implements for hacking a passage
through, so that he was enabled to take the car much farther than he had
at first thought possible. After they had partaken of refreshment under
the drooping boughs of a great banyan tree, with a screen of bamboos on
the west sheltering them from the afternoon sun, they proceeded on foot
to the ruins, he carrying the rug in case she should need to rest.

"How fairy-like and lovely it all is!" cried Joyce clinging to his arm
and picking her way among the dead leaves. The speckled sunlight dancing
through the leaves, the spreading branches overhead, the graceful
foliage of the tropical vegetation, the beautiful birds, made the spot
peculiarly fascinat