ecklessly now Justin cast his
self-accusations to the winds.

And Hermia? Well, she had none to cast. Self-accusation was a phase of
introspect in which she never indulged. Why should she, when the rule
of conduct on which she acted with a scrupulosity of observance worthy
of a better cause, was "Get all you can out of life, and while you can"?
Never a thought had she to waste on the absent. It was his fault that
he was absent. Never, moreover, a misgiving.

Yet when Spence joined her there in the gateway of the stockade, the
eager, happy glow in his face met with scant response in her own. She
affected a reproachful tone and attitude. They had both done very
wrong, it conveyed. It could not be helped now, but the least said,
soonest mended. They had been very weak, and very foolish, but it must
never occur again. And all the while she was killing herself in her
efforts to restrain her laughter, for she fully intended that it should
occur again--again and again--and that at no distant period: but she was
going to keep her adorer's appreciation up to fever heat. To this
intent, he must be kept well in hand at first.

Well, he was submissive enough even for her, and again she was convulsed
with suppressed mirth, for she promised herself keen enjoyment watching
his struggles to keep within the bounds of conventionality she had
imposed upon him. The whirlings and buzzings of the impaled beetle of
her childhood's days, as the luckless insect spun round and round in his
efforts to free himself from the transfixing pin, were not in it with
the fun held out to her by the writhings of this six-foot-one victim.
And the sport was already beginning in his blank face and piteous tone.

"No, I don't think you must even use my name, Justin," she said, in
wind-up of the programme she was laying before him as to his future rule
of conduct. "You will be forgetting, and rapping it out when Hilary is
here."

"What then? Would he be very jealous?" returned the victim shortly,
very sore with jealousy himself at this recalling of the absent one's
existence.

"Perhaps. There's no telling," answered Hermia, with a wholly
enigmatical smile. She was thinking that here was a new and
entertaining development of the situation. Hilary jealous! Heavens!
that would be a feat to have accomplished. She did not believe him
capable of any such foolish and youthful passion. And yet, if she
misjudged him? And recognising such a po