at
his feet, he lounging back, long-legged, smoke-veiled, in one of the
lacquered chairs. She had been fingering her collar and she kept on
fingering it as she spoke and staring straight into the flames, but,
at the last, quoting Pierre's words and tone, her voice and face
quivered and she looked at him with eyes of mysterious pain, in them a
sort of uncomprehended anguish.

"Why was that, Prosper?" she asked; "I mean, why did he say it that
way? And what--what does it stand for, marrying or not--?"

Prosper jerked a little in his chair, then said he blasphemously,
"Marriage is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Don't be the conventional
woman, Joan. Isn't this beautiful, this life of ours?"

"Yes." But her eyes of uncomprehended pain were still upon him. So he
put his hand over them and drew her head against his knee. "Yes, but
that other life was--was--before Pierre changed, it was beautiful--"

"Of course. Love is always beautiful. Not even marriage can always
spoil it, though it very often does. Well, Joan," he went on
flippantly, though the tickle of her lashes against his palm somehow
disturbed his flippancy, "I'll go into the subject with you one of
these days, when the weather isn't so beautiful. It's really a matter
of law, property rights, and so forth; a practice variously conducted
in various lands; it's man's most studied insult to woman; it's
recommended as the lesser of two evils by a man who despised woman as
only an Oriental can despise her, Saint Paul by name; it's a thing
civilized women cry for till they get it and then quite bitterly learn
to understand; it's a horrible invention which needn't touch your
beautiful clean soul, dear. Come out and look at the moon."

"Listen!" They stood side by side at the door. "Some silly bird thinks
that is the dawn. Look at me, Joan!"

She lifted obedient eyes.

"There! That's better. Don't get that other look. I can't bear it. I
love you."

A moment later they went out into the sweet, silver silence down to
the silver lake.

* * * * *

Four months later the name of Prosper Gael began to be on every one's
lips, and before every one's eyes; the world, his world, began to
clamor for him. Even Wen Ho grumbled at this going out on tremendous
journeys after the mail for which Prosper grew more and more greedy and
impatient. His novel, "The Canyon," had been accepted, was enormously
advertised, had made an extraordina