said. "I was a--a failure. I--I do not
understand women."

"Nor I men. They are not what I understand. I don't mean the mob I've
been bred to dance with--I understand them. But a real man--" she
laughed, drearily--"I expected a god for a husband."

"I am sorry," he said; "I am horribly sorry. I have learned many things
in four years. Kathleen, I--I don't know what to do."

"There is nothing to do, is there?"

"Your freedom--"

"I am free."

"I am afraid you will need more freedom than you have, some day."

She looked him full in the eyes. "Do _you_ desire it?"

A faint sound fell upon the stillness of the forest; they listened; it
came again from the distant sea.

"I think it is the yacht," she said.

They rose together; he took her paddle, and they walked down the jungle
path to the landing. Her canoe and his spare boat lay there, floating
close together.

"It will be an hour before a boat from the yacht reaches the wrecked
launch," he said. "Will you wait in my boat?"

She bent her head and laid her hand in his, stepping lightly into the
bow.

"Cast off and row me a little way," she said, leaning back in the stern.
"Isn't this lagoon wonderful? See the color in water and sky. How green
the forest is!--green as a young woodland in April. And the reeds are
green and gold, and the west is all gold. Look at that great white
bird--with wings like an angel's! What is that heavenly odor from the
forest? Oh," she sighed, elbows on knees, "this is too delicious to be
real!"

A moment later she began, irrelevantly: "Ethics! Ethics! who can teach
them? One must know, and heed no teaching. All preconceived ideas may be
wrong; I am quite sure I was wrong--sometimes."

And again irrelevantly, "I was horribly intolerant once."

"Once you asked me a question," he said. "We separated because I refused
to answer you."

She closed her eyes and the color flooded her face.

"I shall never ask it again," she said.

But he went on: "I refused to reply. I was an ass; I had theories, too.
They're gone, quite gone. I will answer you now, if you wish."

Her face burned. "No! No, don't--don't answer me; don't, I beg of you!
I--I know now that even the gods--" She covered her face with her hands.
The boat drifted rapidly on; it was flood-tide.

"Yes, even the gods," he said. "There is the answer. Now you know."

Overhead the sky grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept
through the calm evening air, and their