ome? Not one shadow in his
pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness.
How jolly, how young he was after all!

They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture
a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour--incredibly
swift, unless the hall clock's deadened chimes were mocking Time itself
with mischievous effrontery.

She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening,
meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed. When the last chime had
sounded she lay back among her cushions.

"Thank you for staying," she said quite happily.

"Am I to go?"

Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows:

"Where were you going when I--spoiled it all? For you were going
somewhere--out there"--with a gesture toward the darkness
outside--"somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem
to have. . . . Was it to your club? What do men do there? Is it very gay
at men's clubs? . . . It must be interesting to go where men have such
jolly times--where men gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we
so often wonder at--and pretend we are indifferent. But we are very
curious, nevertheless--even about the boys of Gerald's age--whom we
laugh at and torment; and we can't help wondering how they talk to each
other--what they say that is so interesting; for they somehow manage to
convey that impression to us--even against our will. . . . If you stay,
I shall never have done with chattering. When you sit there with one
lazy knee so leisurely draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at
me through your cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which
I desire to discuss with you. . . . So you had better go."

"I am happier here," he said, watching her.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Then--then--am _I_, also, one of the 'good times' a man can have?--when
he is at liberty to reflect and choose as he idles over his coffee?"

"A man is fortunate if you permit that choice."

"Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy--not a dance or dinner
partner, or one of the men one meets about--everywhere from pillar to
post. Do you think me interesting to real men?--like you and Boots?"

"Yes," he said deliberately, "I do. I don't know how interesting,
because--I never quite realised how--how you had matured. . . . That was
my stupidity."

"Captain Selwyn!" in confused triumph; "you never gave me a chance; I
mean, you always were nice in