e fair."

"You see we shall have to play fair every minute. That's the way to be
good playmates."

"That's what we are, isn't it--playmates?"

"It's about the size of it." Then he asked her gravely, across the
distance between them, "Don't you hear a nightingale?"

She was taken in.

"But there aren't any nightingales in New England!"

"I almost think I hear one. You see if you don't."

She caught the pace then, and listened. Presently she spoke as gravely
as he had done.

"I am sure I hear one--over there in the rose garden."

"I knew you would." He breathed quickly, in a gay relief. "Yes, in the
rose garden, 'her breast against a thorn.' Well, playmate, it's a
wonderful night. I smell the roses, too, don't you?"

"Yes, and lilies. The nightingale sings very loud."

"Let us talk, playmate. Where have you been since I saw you last?"

"Since that other night I came down here?"

"Since that other year, so long ago. We mustn't forget there are other
years, though we can't quite recall them. If there hadn't been, we
shouldn't be hearing the nightingale to-night and talking without words.
You see it's a good while since I saw you. How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"Twenty-five! A quarter of a century. That's a long time. Well, what
have you been doing all that twenty-five years?"

She seemed to shrink into herself, as if a hand had struck her.

"Don't!" she breathed. "Don't ask me to remember."

"Why, no! not if it troubles you."

"Troubles me! it kills me. Can't we begin now?"

"We will begin now. There, playmate, don't shiver. I feel you're doing
it through the moonlight. Don't let your chin tremble either. It did,
that night down in the shack."

"When I was talking about Electra?"

"I guess so. Anyway it trembled a lot, and I made up my mind it mustn't
any more. Cheer up, playmate. Be a man."

"I wish I were a man." She spoke bitterly. The beauty of the night
seemed to break about her, and this castle of whim that had looked, a
moment ago, more solid than certainty, was crumbling.

"Now you're doing what I told you not to," he warned her gravely. "You
have stopped telling the truth. You don't wish you were a man. Think how
happy you were a minute ago, only because you are a beautiful woman and
you heard the nightingale."

She was struggling back into the clear medium that had been between them
the moment before.

"I only meant"--she spoke painstakingly, hunting for words and
pathetically