ch as the episode and your
opinion are worth."

"I am wondering," he said, "why this little tincture of bitterness
flavours what you say to me?"

"Because I've misbehaved; and so have you. Anyway, now that it's done,
there's scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant
or less flippant--"

"You don't really think--"

"Certainly. After all is said and done, we _don't_ know each other; here
we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine,
Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded. You are you;
I am I; formally, millions of miles apart--temporarily and informally
close together, paralleling each other's course through life for the
span of half an hour--here under the Southern stars.... O Ulysses, truly
that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be
briefer than your prototype's. See, now; here is the road; and I release
you to that not impossible she--"

"There is none--"

"There will be. You are very young. Good-bye."

"The confusing part of it to me," he said, smiling, "is to _see_ you
so--so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish
immaturity!--and then to _hear_ you as you _are_--witty, experienced,
nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and--"

"You think me experienced?"

"Yes."

"Sure of myself?"

"Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute
self-possession--and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit--at my
expense--"

She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated
gravity.

"At your expense?" she repeated. "Why not? You have cost me something."

"You said--"

"I know what I said: I said that we might become friends. But even so,
you have already cost me something. Tell me"--he began to listen for
this little trick of speech--"how many men do you know who would not
misunderstand what I have done this evening? And--do _you_ understand
it, Mr. Hamil?"

"I think--"

"If you do you are cleverer than I," she said almost listlessly, moving
on again under the royal palms.

"Do you mean that--"

"Yes; that I myself don't entirely understand it. Here, under this
Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of
insouciant directness almost primitive. There comes, after a while, a
certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and
precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes
something less harmless. There _is_ luxury