ld you live always out of the world?" he asked her.

"But it wouldn't be out of the world."

"Away from people--with me?"

"With you?"

She looked at him for a moment almost as if startled. Then there came
into her brown eyes a scrutiny that seemed half-inward, as if it were
partially applied to herself.

"It's difficult to be certain what one could do. I suppose one has
several sides."

"Ah! And your singing side?"

"I want to speak about that."

Her voice was suddenly more practical, and her whole look and manner
changed, losing in romance and strangeness, gaining in directness and
energy.

"We've never discussed it."

She sat down on a slab of rock at the edge of the precipice, and went
on:

"You don't mind your wife being a public singer, do you, Dion?"

"Suppose I do?"

"Do you?"

"You're so energetic I doubt if you could be happy in idleness."

"I couldn't in England."

"And in Greece? But we are only here for such a short time."

He took her hand in his.

"Learning the lessons of happiness."

"Good lessons for us!" she said, smiling.

"The best there are. I believe in the education of joy. It opens the
heart, calls up all the generous things. But your singing; can I bear
your traveling about perpetually all over England?"

"If I get engagements."

"You will. You had a good many for concerts last winter. You've got
several for June and July. You'll get many more. But who's to go with
you on your travels?"

"Beattie, of course. Why do you look at me like that?"

"How do we know Beatrice won't marry?"

Rosamund looked grave.

"Why shouldn't she?" asked Dion.

"She may, of course."

"D'you think she'll remain your apanage now?" he asked, with a hint of
smiling sarcasm that could not hurt her.

"My apanage?"

"Hasn't she been something like that?"

"Perhaps she has. But Beattie always sinks herself in others. She
wouldn't be happy if she didn't do that. Of course, your friend Guy
Daventry's in love with Beattie."

"Deeply."

"But I'm not at all sure that Beattie--"

She paused abruptly. After a moment she continued:

"You asked me to-day why I married you. I didn't answer you and I'm not
going to answer you now--entirely. But you're not like other men, most
other men."

"In what way?"

"A way that means very much to me," she answered, with a delicious
purity and directness. "Women feel such things very soon when they know
men. I could easily have never married, but