silent for a moment.

"That makes conversation a bit difficult," he remarked. She leaned back
in her chair.

"After this evening," she said, "I go out of your life as completely and
finally as though I had never existed. I have a fancy to take my poor
secrets with me. If you wish to talk, tell me about yourself. You have
gone out of your way to be kind to me. I wonder why. It doesn't seem to
be your role."

He smiled slowly. His face was fashioned upon broad lines and the
relaxing of his lips lightened it wonderfully. He had good teeth,
clear gray eyes, and coarse black hair which he wore a trifle long; his
forehead was too massive for good looks.

"No," he admitted, "I do not think that benevolence is one of my
characteristics."

Her dark eyes were turned full upon him; her red lips, redder than ever
they seemed against the pallor of her cheeks and her deep brown hair,
curled slightly. There was something almost insolent in her tone.

"You understand, I hope," she continued, "that you have nothing whatever
to look for from me in return for this sum which you propose to expend
for my entertainment?"

"I understand that," he replied.

"Not even gratitude," she persisted. "I really do not feel grateful to
you. You are probably doing this to gratify some selfish interest or
curiosity. I warn you that I am quite incapable of any of the proper
sentiments of life."

"Your gratitude would be of no value to me whatever," he assured her.

She was still not wholly satisfied. His complete stolidity frustrated
every effort she made to penetrate beneath the surface.

"If I believed," she went on, "that you were one of those men--the
world is full of them, you know--who will help a woman with a reasonable
appearance so long as it does not seriously interfere with their own
comfort--"

"Your sex has nothing whatever to do with it," he interrupted. "As to
your appearance, I have not even considered it. I could not tell you
whether you are beautiful or ugly--I am no judge of these matters. What
I have done, I have done because it pleased me to do it."

"Do you always do what pleases you?" she asked.

"Nearly always."

She looked him over again attentively, with an interest obviously
impersonal, a trifle supercilious.

"I suppose," she remarked, "you consider yourself one of the strong
people of the world?"

"I do not know about that," he answered. "I do not often think about
myself."

"I mean," she explained, "t