een seventeen and twenty-seven--taste
the world as it was then.

What Teddy offered was different. Something was there that even Peter
did not have--something that made her catch her breath once or twice
when he sang to her like a white-robed choir-boy. It was as if he
asked her to take his hand and jump with him into a white-hot flame.
He carried her farther back in her passions than Peter did--back to
seventeen, back to the primitive, elemental part of her. He really
made her heart beat. But on guard within her stood the older woman,
and she could not move.

Now came Monte--asking nothing. He asked nothing because he wished to
give nothing. She was under no illusion about that. There was not
anything idealistic about Monte. This was to be purely an arrangement
for their mutual comfort. They were to be companions on an indefinite
tour of the world--each paying his own bills.

At thirty-two he needed a comrade of some sort, and in his turn he
offered himself as an escort. She found no apparent reason, then, even
when she had spent half the night getting as far as this, why she
should not immediately accept his proposal. Yet she still hesitated.

It was not that she did not trust Monte. Not the slightest doubt in
the world existed in her mind about that. She would trust him farther
than she would even Peter--trust him farther than any man she had ever
met. He was four-square, and she knew it. Perhaps it was a curious
suggestion--it was just because of this that she hesitated.

In a way, she was considering Monte. She did not like to help him give
up responsibilities that might be good for him. She was somewhat
disappointed that he was willing to give them up. He did not have the
excuse she had--years of self-sacrifice. He had been free all his life
to indulge himself, and he had done so. He had never known a care,
never known a heartache. Having money, he had used it decently, so
that he had avoided even the compensating curse that is supposed to
come with money.

She knew there was a lot to Monte. She had sensed that from the first.
He had proved it in the last two weeks. It only needed some one to
bring it out, and he would average high. Love might do it--the same
white-hot love that had driven Teddy mad.

But that was what he was avoiding, just as she was. Well, what of it?
If one did not reach the heights, then one did not sound the depths.
After all, it was not within her province to