pending the winter at Sorrento."

Bernard began to laugh, and then he told her she must have had a very
happy life--"to call a winter at Sorrento a sacrifice."

"It depends upon what one gives up," said Miss Vivian.

"What did you give up?"

She touched him with her mocking smile again.

"That is not a very civil question, asked in that way."

"You mean that I seem to doubt your abnegation?"

"You seem to insinuate that I had nothing to renounce. I gave up--I
gave up--" and she looked about her, considering a little--"I gave up
society."

"I am glad you remember what it was," said Bernard. "If I have seemed
uncivil, let me make it up. When a woman speaks of giving up society,
what she means is giving up admiration. You can never have given up
that--you can never have escaped from it. You must have found it even at
Sorrento."

"It may have been there, but I never found it. It was very
respectful--it never expressed itself."

"That is the deepest kind," said Bernard.

"I prefer the shallower varieties," the young girl answered.

"Well," said Bernard, "you must remember that although shallow
admiration expresses itself, all the admiration that expresses itself is
not shallow."

Miss Vivian hesitated a moment.

"Some of it is impertinent," she said, looking straight at him, rather
gravely.

Bernard hesitated about as long.

"When it is impertinent it is shallow. That comes to the same thing."

The young girl frowned a little.

"I am not sure that I understand--I am rather stupid. But you see how
right I am in my taste for such places as this. I have to come here to
hear such ingenious remarks."

"You should add that my coming, as well, has something to do with it."

"Everything!" said Miss Vivian.

"Everything? Does no one else make ingenious remarks? Does n't my friend
Wright?"

"Mr. Wright says excellent things, but I should not exactly call them
ingenious remarks."

"It is not what Wright says; it 's what he does. That 's the charm!"
said Bernard.

His companion was silent for a moment. "That 's not usually a charm;
good conduct is not thought pleasing."

"It surely is not thought the reverse!" Bernard exclaimed.

"It does n't rank--in the opinion of most people--among the things that
make men agreeable."

"It depends upon what you call agreeable."

"Exactly so," said Miss Vivian. "It all depends on that."

"But the agreeable," Bernard went on--"it is n't after all, fortunately,
su