“Well, perhaps it would,” replied Vandeleur, philosophically. “Only it is so devilish hard not to make love to you when one’s got the chance. And, begad! if you’d just give up looking like a little warm, brown saint, it would be better for the peace of mind of the men.” He stooped and touched her hand with his lips and strode buoyantly out of the room. She heard him humming one of his songs along the passage, then the slam of the front door; then there was silence, and Yvonne went to bed with a grateful sense of escape from unknown dangers. Still, she was sorry for Vandeleur, although she had a dim perception of the superficiality of his passion. It would have been nice, had it been possible, to make him happy. She had a queer, unreasonable little feeling that she had been selfish. She sighed as she settled herself to sleep. The ways of the world were very complicated. To those who knew her it was often a subject for marvel that she was not crushed in the fierce struggle of life. A creature so yielding, so simple, so unaffected by experience or the obvious external lessons of the world, and yet standing serenely in the midst of the turmoil, seemed an incongruity--gave a sense of shock, a prompting to rescue, such as would arise from the sight of a child in the middle of a roadway clashing with traffic. She was made for protection, tenderness, all the sheltering luxuries and amenities of life. It was a flaw in the eternal fitness of things that she was alone, earning her livelihood, with nothing but her sweetness and innocence to guard her from buffeting and downfall. Yet it was her very simplicity that saved her from outward strain; and inward stress was as yet spared her, through her unawakened child's nature. She laughed when folks pitied her. To earn her living was an easy matter. Born in the profession, trained for it from her earliest days, she had taken to it as a young swan to the water. Engagements came like the winds, the visits of her friends, and other such natural and commonplace phenomena. She sang, or gave her lessons, and the money was paid in to the branch of the City Bank close by her flat, and when she needed funds for her modest expenses she wrote a cheque and sent her maid to cash it When her balance was getting low, she practised little economies and postponed payment of bills; when it was high, she settled her debts, bought new clothes, and had a dozen oysters now and then for supper. It was very simple. She did not pity herself at all. Nor did she feel the trouble of her past married life. It had gone by like a cloudy day, forgotten in succeeding sunshine, and had left singularly little trace upon her character. Even the period of unhappiness had not weighed unduly. A more resistful nature might have been wrecked irretrievably; but Yvonne had been cast upon the shoals only for a season.