Of course if I had been wiser or older I would have said nothing more, and left Time to do his own perfect work. But I could not be content. I forgot all about Alida, and it seemed to me at that moment that nothing else mattered so long as Jeanne Felix remained friends with me. I have always been like that, and I cannot say that the business has worked out badly in the long run. No matter what a tangled web I wove, I always managed in the end to retain the good will of my dear lost loves, even when the losing was entirely my fault. The thought that was most prominent in my own mind at that moment was how pleasant it would be to obey the imperious rule of Alida the Princess on the sunny slopes below St. Andre, without prejudice to the charming boy-and-girl comradeship I enjoyed with Rhoda Polly on the walks and river promenades of Aramon-les-Ateliers--neither of these to interfere in the least with the sweetness of Jeanne's breath and the touch of her surrendered lips in the bosky thickets along the Durance. The young male of twenty-one has a heart which can beat for considerably more than one. At least so it was in my time. It surprised me, and I must admit rather shocked me, when Jeanne of all girls refused to lend herself to any such combination. I might have dotted the twin rivers with my loves and Rhoda Polly would not have cared, but such conduct from Jeanne Felix I could only look upon as highly unsatisfactory. I had never expected it of Jeanne. It would teach me to walk very warily in the matter of Alida. Foolish Jeanne, thus to have killed the pure flower of candour in my bosom! I made a last appeal to her, which to myself seemed irresistible. There was (I averred) a relationship in the world which might be called real brother-and-sisterhood, a fraternity of the spirit. This existed between Rhoda Polly and myself. We had always been conscious of it. When we played in pinafores in the dust we chose to be together, and left the others to their noisier sports. Afterwards we studied the same subjects at college--she at Selborne, I at St. Andre. We compared notes afterwards. We talked, but Jeanne must not think that there was more in the business than that. I could, would, must, and did assure her that the whole matter began and ended in a close spiritual brotherhood---- "Spiritual fiddlestick!" burst out Jeanne, turning fiercely upon me. "Have you ever kissed her?" Now I could lie upon occasion to oblige a lady, but the question was shot out at me so unexpectedly that my lips moved but I spake not.