laughed and snuggled closer into the cushions. "I can't put it into
words. I just know by looking at you. You have the air."

"Then what makes you say that Terry may not be one of my big things?"

She glanced up at him amused. "I almost made you angry when I said
that.--Do you really want to know? I said it because I don't think that
she is one of your big things and, what's more, you don't think that she
is either. Now I _have_ made you angry---- But you don't--not the sane
you, who was and is and will be to-morrow--the you who'll outlive this
disappointment."

He was at one and the same time intrigued and offended by the turn the
conversation had taken. His memory groped back to the first conception
he had had of this woman--the woman who tricked married men, who used
scented note-paper, who interpreted thoughts before they were uttered
and forestalled actions before they had been planned--the woman whom he
had been instructed to buy off with a price. What was he doing
discussing his love-affair with such as her?

His voice was chilling when he spoke. "It's very good of you to take
such an interest in me. I ought to be gratified that you should think
you know so much about me, and after so short an acquaintance--so very
much more than I know about myself."

"But I don't think; I do know far more at this moment than you know
about yourself." Her tones were calm and lazy, unembarrassed and
pleasant. The red glow of the fire glinting on the silver tea-service
seemed the reflection of her cheerfulness.

"If you're so certain that you know, you might tell me," he said
stiffly.

"I know---- Do you mind if I smoke?" She leant forward while he held a
match to her cigarette. "I know that you're an intensely lonely man. All
men have to be lonely till they're thirty if they're going to get
anywhere. They have no time to spare. You've had no time to spare for
women--that's why you don't understand them. Women were for you a treat
in store, until the war broke. Then suddenly you discovered that you had
missed the most precious thing in life. You hadn't the time to be wise
in your choice, so you turned to some one young and accessible. Her
youth seemed to symbolize all that you coveted at the moment; it
symbolized going on forever. You weren't really in love with her as an
individual; you were in love with the thought of love and youth. You
won't believe it, but almost any young girl who was beautiful and
willing would have