ocial
redemption was on the way, if vanity went for anything. It was
stirring and tingling with life again. With the money advanced by the
purser he bought shirts and collars and ties; and as he possessed no
watch, returned barely in time to dress for dinner. He was not at all
disturbed to learn that the inquisitive German, the colonel and his
fidgety charges, had decided to proceed to Rangoon by rail. Indeed,
there was a bit of exultation in his manner as he observed the vacant
chairs. Paradise for two whole days. And he proposed to make the most
of it. Now, his mind was as clear of evil as a forest spring. He
simply wanted to play; wanted to give rein to the lighter emotions so
long pent up in his lonely heart.

The purser, used to these sudden changes and desertions in his
passenger-lists, gave the situation no thought. But Elsa saw a mild
danger, all the more alluring because it hung nebulously. For years
she had walked in conformity with the cramped and puerile laws that
govern society. She had obeyed most of them from habit, others from
necessity. What harm could there be in having a little fling? He was
so amazingly like outwardly, so astonishingly unlike inwardly, that the
situation held for her a subtle fascination against which she was in
nowise inclined to fight. What had nature in mind when she produced
two men exactly alike in appearance but in reality as far apart as the
poles? Would it be worth while to find out? She was not wholly
ignorant of her power. She could bend the man if she tried. Should
she try?

They were like two children, setting out to play a game with fire.

She thought of Arthur. Had he gone the length of his thirty-five years
without his peccadillos? Scarcely. She understood the general run of
men well enough to accept this fact. Whomever she married she was
never going to worry him with questions regarding his bachelor life.
Nor did she propose to be questioned about her own past. Besides, she
hadn't married Arthur yet; she had only promised to. And such promises
were sometimes sensibly broken. There ran through her a fine vein of
mercilessness, but it was without cruelty, it was leavened with both
logic and justice. When the time came she would name the day to
Arthur, or she would with equal frankness announce that she would not
marry him at all. These thoughts flashed through her mind,
disconnectedly, while she talked and laughed.

It never occurred to