dbury Gray. I do, slightly.
What about him?" And he waited, remembering Nina's suggestion as to that
wealthy young man's eligibility.

"He's one of the nicest men I know," she replied frankly.

"Yes, but you don't know 'Boots' Lansing."

"The gentleman who was bucked out of his footwear? Is he attractive?"

"Rather. Shrieks rent the air when 'Boots' left Manila."

"Feminine shrieks?"

"Exclusively. The men were glad enough. He has three months' leave this
winter, so you'll see him soon."

She thanked him mockingly for the promise, watching him from amused
eyes. After a moment she said:

"I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; but, do
you know, I am not inclined to revels? There has been a little--just a
very little bit too much festivity so far. . . . Not that I don't adore
dinners and gossip and dances; not that I do not love to pervade bright
and glittering places. Oh, no. Only--I--"

She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn: "I sometimes feel a curious desire
for other things. I have been feeling it all day."

"What things?"

"I--don't know--exactly; substantial things. I'd like to learn about
things. My father was the head of the American School of Archaeology in
Crete. My mother was his intellectual equal, I believe--"

Her voice had fallen as she spoke. "Do you wonder that physical pleasure
palls a little at times? I inherit something besides a capacity for
dancing."

He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally new.

"When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter. I saw the
excavations in Crete for the buried city which father discovered near
Praesos. We lived for a while with Professor Flanders in the Fayum
district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built nearly three thousand years
before the coming of Christ; I myself picked up a scarab as old as the
ruins! . . . Captain Selwyn--I was only a child of ten; I could
understand very little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never
forgotten the happiness of that winter! . . . And that is why, at times,
pleasures tire me a little; and a little discontent creeps in. It is
ungrateful and ungracious of me to say so, but I did wish so much to go
to college--to have something to care for--as mother cared for father's
work. Why, do you know that my mother accidentally discovered the
thirty-seventh sign in the Karian Signary?"

"No," said Selwyn, "I did not know that." He forbore to add that he did
not kno