own.

At last:

"Is there no way out of it for you, Louis? I am not thinking of myself,"
she added simply.

He turned fully around.

"If there was a way out I'd take it and marry you."

"I did not ask for that; I was thinking of you."

He was silent.

"Besides," she said, "I know that you do not love me."

"That is true only because I _will_ not. I could."

She looked at him.

"But," he said calmly, "I mustn't; because there is no way out for
me--there's no way out of anything for me--while I live--down here."

"Down--where?"

"On this exotic planet called the earth, dear child," he said with
mocking gravity. "I'm a sort of moon-calf--a seed blown clear from
Saturn's surface, which fell here and sprouted into the thing you call
Louis Malcourt." And, his perverse gaiety in full possession of him
again, he laughed, and his mirth was tinctured with the bitter-sweet of
that humorous malice which jeered unkindly only at himself.

"All to the bad, Virginia--all to the bow-wows--judging me from your
narrow, earthly standard and the laws of your local divinity. That's why
I want to see the real One and ask Him how bad I really am. They'd tell
me down here that I'll never see Him. Zut! I'll take that chance--not
such a long shot either. Why, if I am no good, the risk is all the
better; He _is_ because of such as I! No need for Him where all the
ba-bas are white as the driven snow, and all the little white doves
keep their feathers clean and coo-coo hymns from dawn to sunset.... By
the way, I never gave you anything, did I?--a Chinese god, for example?"

She shook her head, bewildered at his inconsequences.

"No, I never did. You're not entitled to a gift of a Chinese god from
me. But I've given eighteen of them to a number of--ah--friends. I had
nineteen, but never had the--right to present that nineteenth god."

"What do you mean, Louis?"

"Oh, those gilded idols are the deities of secrecy. Their commandment
is, 'Thou shalt not be found out.' So I distributed them among those who
worship them--that is, I have so directed my executors.... By the way, I
made a new will."

He looked at her cheerfully, evidently very much pleased with himself.

"And _what_ do you think I've left to you?"

"Louis, I don't--"

"Why, the bridle, saddle, crop, and spurs I wore that day when we rode
to the ocean! Don't you remember the day that you noticed me listening
and asked me what I heard?"

"Y-yes--"

"And I told y