be in the boat
or on the rock?"

"I don't see much difference, do you? Except that the passing boats,
if there are any, might think it was a matter of choice to sit on a
damp rock for two hours, but no one could think we wanted to sit in a
boat in the mud."

They landed on the rock for the second time. "For my part it's no
great punishment," said Lavendar, when they settled themselves, "since
the place is big enough for two and you're one of them!"

"Wouldn't this be as good a stool of repentance from which to confess
your faults as any?" asked Robinette, as she tucked her shoeless foot
beneath her mud-stained skirt and made herself as comfortable as
possible. "I'll even offer a return of confidence upon my own
weaknesses, if I can find them, but at present only miles of virtue
stretch behind me. Ugh! How the mud smells; quite penitential! Now:--

"What have you sought you should have shunned,
And into what new follies run?"

"Oh, what a bad rhyme!" said Lavendar.

"It's Pythagoras, any way," she explained.

Then suddenly changing his tone, Lavendar went on. "This is not merely
a jest, Mrs. Loring. Before you admit me really amongst the number of
your friends I should like you to know that--to put it plainly--my
own little world would tell you at the moment that I am a heartless
jilt."

"That is a very ugly expression, Mr. Lavendar, and I shall choose not
to believe it, until you give me your own version of the story."

"In one way I can give you no other; except that I was just fool
enough to drift into an engagement with a woman whom I did not really
love, and just not enough of a fool to make both of us miserable for
life when I, all too late, found out my mistake."

There passed before him at that moment other foolish blithe little
loves, like faded flowers with the sweetness gone out of them. They
had been so innocent, so fragile, so free from blame; all but the
last; and this last it was that threatened to rise like a shadow
perhaps, and defeat his winning the only woman he could ever love.

Robinette stared at the stretches of ooze, and then stole a look at
Mark Lavendar. "The idea of calling that man a jilt," she thought.
"Look at his eyes; look at his mouth; listen to his voice; there is
truth in them all. Oh for a sight of the girl he jilted! How much it
would explain! No, not altogether, because the careless making of his
engagement would have to be accounted for, as well