me that I'm
adorable. Why, you might as safely venture to adore Diana of the
Ephesians! And you know what she did to her admirers."

"She was really Aphrodite, wasn't she?" he said, laughing.

"Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Lada--and the Ephesian Diana--I'm afraid they
all were hussies. But I'm a hussy, too, Jim! If you doubt it, ask any
well brought up girl you know and tell her how we met and how we've
behaved ever since, and what obnoxious ideas I entertain toward all
things conventional and orthodox!"

"Palla, are you really serious?--I'm never entirely sure what is under
your badinage."

"Why, of course I am serious. I don't believe in any of the things
that you believe in. I've often told you so, though you don't believe
me----"

"Nonsense!"

"I don't, I tell you. I did once. But I'm awake. No 'threats of hell
or hopes of any sugary paradise' influence me. Nor does custom and
convention. Nor do the laws and teachings of our present civilisation
matter one straw to me. I'd break every law if it suited me."

He laughed and lifted her hand from her lap: "You funny child," he
said, "you wouldn't steal, for example--would you?"

"I don't desire to."

"Would you commit perjury?"

"No!"

"Murder?"

"I have a law of my own, kind sir. It doesn't happen to permit murder,
arson, forgery, piracy, smuggling----"

Their irresponsible laughter interrupted her.

"What else wouldn't you do?" he managed to ask.

"I wouldn't do anything mean, deceitful, dishonest, cruel. But it's
not your antiquated laws--it's my own and original law that governs my
conduct."

"You always conform to it?"

"I do. But you don't conform to yours. So I'll try to help you
remember the petty but always sacred conventions of our own accepted
code----"

And, with unfeigned malice, she began to disengage her hand from
his--loosened the slim fingers one by one, all the while watching him
sideways with prim lips pursed and lifted eyebrows.

"Try always to remember," she said, "that, according to your code, any
demonstration of affection toward a comparative stranger is
exceedingly bad form."

However, he picked up her hand again, which she had carelessly left
lying on the sofa near his, and again she freed it, leisurely.

They conversed animatedly, as always, discussing matters of common
interest, yet faintly in her ears sounded the unfamiliar echo of
passion.

It haunted her mind, too--an indefinable undertone delicately
persistent