voice and manner were so subdued that she
laughed.

"Fancy asking a girl such a question," she said. "You shouldn't ask a
woman whether she doesn't want to know you. It would be irregular
enough, under the circumstances, to say that you wanted to know her."

"That's what I meant," he replied, wincing. "Would you consider it?"

She could not disguise her amusement.

"Yes; I'll consider it, Mr. Shotwell. I'll give it my careful
attention. I owe you something, anyway."

"What?" he asked uncertainly, prepared for further squelching.

"I don't know exactly what. But when a man remembers a woman, and the
woman forgets the man, isn't something due him?"

"I think there is," he said so naively that Palla was unable to
restrain her gaiety.

"This is a silly conversation," she said, "--as silly as though I had
accepted the cocktail you so thoughtfully suggested. We're both
enjoying each other and we know it."

"Really!" he exclaimed, brightening.

His boyish relief--everything that this young man said to her--seemed
to excite the girl to mirth. Perhaps she had been starved for laughter
longer than is good for anybody. Besides, her heart was naturally
responsive--opened easily--was easily engaged.

"Of course I'm inclined to like you," she said, "or I wouldn't be here
lunching with you and talking nonsense instead of houses----"

"We'll talk houses!"

"No; we'll _look_ at them--later.... Do you know it's a long, long
time since I have laughed with a really untroubled heart?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, it isn't good for a girl. Sadness is a sickness--a physical
disorganisation that infects the mind. It makes a strange emotion of
love, too, perverting it to that mysticism we call religion--and
wasting it.... I suppose you're rather shocked," she said smilingly.

"No.... But have you no religion?"

"Have you?"

"Well--yes."

"Which?"

"Protestant.... Are you Catholic?"

The girl rested her cheek on her hand and dabbed absently at her
orange ice.

"I was once," she said. "I was very religious--in the accepted sense
of the term.... It came rather suddenly;--it seemed to be born as part
of a sudden and close friendship with a girl--began with that
friendship, I think.... And died with it."

She sat quite silent for a while, then a tremulous smile edged her
lips:

"I had meant to take the veil," she said. "I did begin my novitiate."

"Here?"

"No, in Russia. There are a few foreign cloistered orders there...