a new charm in
their airy and butterfly-looking costumes. The men walked bareheaded,
waistcoatless, fanning themselves with straw hats. Here and there, as
they turned into Shaftesbury Avenue, an immaculately turned-out young
man in evening dress passed along the baked pavements and dived into one
of the theatres. Notwithstanding the heat, there seemed to be a sort of
voluptuous atmosphere brooding over the crowded streets. The sky over
Piccadilly Circus was almost violet and the luminous, unneeded lamps had
a festive effect. The strain of a long day had passed. It was the
pleasure-seekers alone who thronged the thoroughfares. Tallente turned
and looked into the corner of the cab, to meet a soft, reflective gleam
in Nora's eyes.

"Isn't London wonderful!" she murmured dreamily. "On a night like this
it always seems to me like a great human being whose pulses you can see
heating, beating all the time."

Tallente, a person very little given to self-analysis, never really
understood the impulse which prompted him to lean towards her, the
slightly quickening sense of excitement with which he sought for the
kindness of her eyes. Suddenly he felt his fingers clasped in hers, a
warm, pleasant grasp, yet which somehow or other seemed to have the
effect of a barrier.

"You asked me a question at dinner-time," she said, "winch I did not
answer at the time. You asked me why I disliked James Miller so much."

"Don't tell me unless you like," he begged. "Don't talk about that
sort of person at all just now, unless you want to."

"I must tell you why I dislike him so much," she insisted. "It is
because he once tried to kiss me."

"Was that so terrible a sin?" he asked, a little thickly.

She smiled up at him with the candour of a child.

"To me it was," she acknowledged, "because it was just the casual caress
of a man seeking for a momentary emotion. Sometimes you have
wondered--or you have looked as though you were wondering--what my ideas
about men and women and the future and the marriage laws, and all that
sort of thing really are. Perhaps I haven't altogether made up my mind
myself, but I do know this, because it is part of myself and my life.
The one desire I have is for children--sons for the State, or daughters
who may bear sons. There isn't anything else which it is worth while
for a woman thinking about for a moment. And yet, do you know, I never
actually think of marrying. I never think about whether love is right