ozens of men
I know who are far less presentable than this highly coloured and robust
young human being; and yet they are part of the accomplished scheme of
things--like degenerate horses, you know--always pathetic to me; but
they're still horses, for all that. Quid rides? Species of the same
genus can cross, of course, but I had rather be a donkey than a mule.
... And if I were a donkey I'd sing and cavort with my own kind, and
let horses flourish their own heels inside the accomplished scheme
of things. ... Now I have been brutal. But--I'm easily coloured by my
environment."

She sat, smiling maliciously down at the water, smoothing out the soaked
skirt of her swimming suit, and swinging her legs reflectively.

"Are you reconciled?" she asked presently.

"To what?"

"To leaving Shotover. To-day is our last day, you know. To-morrow we all
go; and next day these familiar walls will ring with other voices, my
poor friend:

"'Yon rising moon that looks for us again--How oft hereafter will she
wax and wane; How oft hereafter, rising, look for us Through this same
mansion--and for one in vain!'"

"That is I--the one, you know. You may be here again; but I--I shall not
be I if I ever come to Shotover again."

Her stockinged heels beat the devil's tattoo against the marble sides of
the pool. She reached up above her head, drawing down a flowering
branch of Japanese orange, and caressed her delicate nose with the white
blossoms, dreamily, then, mischievously: "I'm accustoming myself to this
most significant perfume," she said, looking at him askance. And she
deliberately hummed the wedding march, watching the colour rise in his
sullen face.

"If you had the courage of a sparrow you'd make life worth something for
us both," he said.

"I know it; I haven't; but I seem to possess the remainder of his
lordship's traits--inconsequence, self-centred selfishness, the instinct
for Fifth Avenue nest-building--all the feathered vices, all the
unlovely personality and futility and uselessness of my prototype. ...
Only, as you observe, I lack the quality of courage."

"I don't know how much courage it requires to do what you're going to
do," he said sulkily.

"Don't you? Sometimes, when you wear a scowl like that, I think that
it may require no more courage than I am capable of. ... And sometimes--I
don't know."

She crossed her knees, one slender ankle imprisoned in her hand, leaning
forward thoughtfully above the water.