If he lacked imagination she had learned by now that he did not fail in its sister virtue, sympathy, and his keen gray eyes, which expressed so perfectly a gay derision, were not slow, she knew, to warm into a smiling tenderness.
"Laura is the most earnest creature alive," she said after a moment.
"Is that so? Then I presume she lacks a sense of humour."
"She has a sense of honour at any rate."
With a laugh he settled his figure more comfortably in his chair, and while she watched the movement, a little fascinated by its easy freedom, she felt a sudden impulse to reach out and touch his broad, strong shoulders as she might have touched the shoulders of a statue. Were they really as hard as bronze, she wondered, or was that suggestion of latent power, of slumbering energy, as deceptive as the caressing glance he bent upon her? The glance meant nothing she was aware—he would have regarded her in much the same way had Perry been at her side, would have shone quite as affectionately, perhaps, upon her mother. Yet, in spite of her worldly knowledge, she felt herself yielding to it as to a delicate flattery. Her eyes were still on him, and presently he caught her gaze and held it by a look which, for all its fervour, had an edge of biting irony. There was a meaning, a mystery in his regard, but his words when at last they came sounded almost empty.
"Oh, that's well enough in its way," he said, "but as a safeguard there's no virtue alive that can stand against a sense of humour. An instinct for the ridiculous will keep any man from going to the devil."
She shot her defiant merriment into his face. "Has it kept you?"
"I?—Oh, I wasn't bound that way, you know—but why do you ask?"
For a breath she hesitated, then, remembering her mystification of an instant ago, she felt a swift desire to punish him for something which even to herself she could not express—for too sharp a prick of unsatisfied curiosity, or was it for too intense a moment of uncertainty?
"Oh, one hears, you know," she replied indifferently.
"One hears! And what is it that one hears?"
His voice was hard, almost angry, and she despised herself because the fierce sound of it made her suddenly afraid.
"Do you know what a man said to me the other day," she went on with a cool insolence before which he became suddenly quiet. "Whom the gods destroy they first infatuate—with an opera singer."
She delivered the words straight from the shoulder, and as she finished he rose from his chair and stood looking angrily down upon her.
"Did you let me come here for this?" he demanded.
"O Arnold, Arnold!" the gayety rang back to her voice, and she made a charming little face of affected terror. "If you're going to be a bear I'll run away."
She stretched out her hand, and he held it for an instant in his own, while he fell back impatiently into his chair.
"The truth is that I was clean mad about her," he said, "about Madame Alta—but it's over now, and I abominate everything that has ever set foot on the stage."
"Was she really beautiful?" she enquired curiously.
He laughed sharply. "Beautiful! She was flesh—if you mean that."
An angry sigh escaped him, and Gerty lighted a fresh cigarette and gave it to him with a soothing gesture. The nervous movements which were characteristic of him became more frequent, and she found herself wondering that they should increase rather than diminish the impression of virile force. For a while he smoked in silence; then, with his eyes still turned away from her, he asked in a changed voice.
"Tell me about your friend—she interests me."
"She interests you! Laura?"
"There's something in her that I like," he pursued, smiling at her exclamation. "She looks human, natural, real. By Jove, she looks as if she were capable of big emotions—as if, too, you could like her without making love. She's something new."
Gerty's amazement was so sincere that she only stared at him, while her red lips parted slightly in a breathless and perfectly unaffected surprise. Something new! Her wonder faded slowly, and she told herself that now at last she understood. So he was still what he had always been—an impatient seeker after fresh sensations.
"I thought you were too much like Perry to care about her," she said.
His amused glance made the remark appear suddenly ridiculous. "I'm different from Perry in one thing at least," he retorted. "You didn't marry me."
"Well, I dare say it's a good thing you never gave me the chance," she tossed back lightly. "I don't let Perry rave, you know, even over Laura. Not that I'm unduly jealous, but that I'm easily bored."
"I can't imagine you jealous," he commented, keeping as usual close to the intimate intention.
"And of Perry! I should hope not!" Her gesture was one of amused indifference. "Jealousy is the darling virtue of the savage, and I may not be a saint, but at least I'm civilized. Give me food and a warm fire and clothes to my back, and I'm quite content to let the passions go."
"Even love?" he asked, still smiling.
She shrugged her shoulders—gracefully as few women can. "Love among the rest—I don't care—why should I? Make me comfortable."
An impulse which was hardly more than a consuming interest in humanity—in the varied phenomena of life—caused him to draw quickly nearer.
"You say that because you've 'arrived,'" he declared. "You've 'arrived' in love as your friend has in literature. The probationary stage after all is the only one worth while, and you've gone too far beyond it."
"I've gone too far beyond everything," she protested, laughing. "I'm a graduate of the world. Now Laura—"
The name recalled his thoughts and he repeated it while she paused. "Laura—it has a jolly sound—and upon my word I haven't seen a woman in years who has had so much to say to me before I've met her. Do you know, I already like her—I like her smooth black hair, without any of your fussy undulations; I like her strong earnest look and the strength in her brow and chin; I even like the way she dresses—"
Gerty's laugh pealed out, and he broke off with a movement of irritation. "Is it possible that Laura is an enchantress," she demanded, "and have I followed the wrong principle all my life? Has my honest intention to please men led me astray?"
"Oh, you may be funny at my expense if you choose," he retorted, "but I've had enough of fluff and feathers, and I like the natural way she wears her clothes—" Again he smoked in an abstracted silence, and then asked abruptly: "Will you take me some day to see her?"
She shook her head.
"Take you? No, you've missed your opportunity."
"But I'll make another. Why not?"
"Because I tell you frankly she would hate you."
"My dear girl, she wouldn't have a shadow of an excuse. No woman has ever hated me in my life."
"Then there's no use seeking
