wonderful, wonderful--and very sweet--if it
does not make you unhappy. Does it?"

"No."

"It's so dear of you to love me that way, Clive. Could--could _I_ do
anything--about it?"

"How?"

"Would you care to kiss me?" she asked with a faint smile. And turned
her face.

Chaste, cool and fresh as a flower her young mouth met his, lingered;
then, still smiling, and a trifle flushed and shy, she laid her cheek
against his shoulder, and her hands in his, calm in her security.

"You see," she said, "you need not worry over me. I am glad you are in
love with me."

CHAPTER XXI

It was in the days when nothing physical tainted her passionate
attachment to Clive. When she was with him she enjoyed the moment with
all her heart and soul--gave to it and to him everything that was best
in her--all the richness of her mental and bodily vigour, all the
unspoiled enthusiasm of her years, all the sturdy freshness of youth,
eager, receptive, credulous, unsatiated.

With them, once more, the old happy companionship began; the Cafe
Arabesque, the Regina, the theatres, the suburban restaurants knew
them again. Familiar faces among the waiters welcomed them to the same
tables; the same ushers guided them through familiar aisles; the same
taxi drivers touched their caps with the same alacrity; the same
porters bestirred themselves for tips.

Sometimes when they were not alone, they and their friends danced late
at Castle House or the Sans-Souci, or the Humming-Bird, or some such
resort, at that time in vogue.

Sometimes on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays and holidays they spent
hours in the museums and libraries--not that Clive had either
inherited or been educated to any truer appreciation of things worth
while than the average New York man--but like the majority he admitted
the solemnity and fearsomeness of art and letters, and his attitude
toward them was as carefully respectful as it was in church.

Which first perplexed and then amused Athalie who, with no
opportunities, had been born with a wholesome passion for all things
beautiful of the mind.

The little she knew she had learned from books or from her
companionship with Captain Dane that first summer after Clive had gone
abroad. And there was nothing orthodox, nothing pedantic, nothing
simulated or artificial in her likes or dislikes, her preferences or
her indifference.

Yet, somehow, even without knowing, the girl instinctively gravitated
toward all thi