She laughed with him. The thought had secured to him that it would be interesting to take Henrietta away from Aubrey. He didn't want her himself for any particular purpose. She was not a girl one could seduce, or even desired to seduce. And marriage was miles from his head. Yet he had once held her hand while sitting on her father's porch and whispered idiotic things to her. He had made love to her, said to her, "Henny dear, I'm wild about you." It annoyed him to think that Aubrey Gilchrist would marry her, would appropriate her as if the things he, Basine, had said and done were of no possible consequence. In addition he had always disliked Aubrey. "Henny," he said quickly, he had called her Henny two years before, "are you really in love with Aubrey?" Henrietta made a face and swung her shoulders like a child embarrassed. Like Keegan, he was physically tired from his night's debauch. But in Basine there was no impulse to repent. As he stood looking at the girl he grew curiously sensual in his thought. The consciousness of his deadened nerves was an irritant to his vanity. He was always doing things he felt disinclined to do, as a result of his constant work of idealization. Also, to follow one's impulse and act logically was what everyone did in a way. If Hugh Keegan was tired he sighed and said so. But Basine, if he was tired, would laugh and suggest adventures. If Keegan or the others he knew were elated over something, they announced it, naively, like children. But Basine edited his elation and often pretended to be bored. And when he was actually bored he often pretended enthusiasm. Such odd perversions had become a habit with Basine. Behind the confusion of purpose that inspired them was a certainty that in acting the way he did he distinguished himself from other people. Often no one was aware, of course, that he was acting, that his enthusiasm was the heroic mask of weariness. But Basine was enough of an egoist to enjoy secretly the emotion of superiority. Because he was tired and because he would have preferred ignoring the trim figure laughing beside him, he deliberately took her hand and allowed his smile to grow serious. Now as he looked at her and saw her eyes soften, his vanity clamored for satisfaction. It was one of the moments in his life when his vanity most desired satisfaction, proof of the high opinions he held of himself. He was tired, bored and without impulses. To dominate others, to possess himself of their regard and homage was the goal toward which he always built. Now the desire to possess himself of the regard and homage of the girl whose hand he was holding came acutely into his thought. "Henny," he whispered, "I'm sorry about you and Aubrey." "Why?" This was the sort of boy and girl scene at which she was almost adept. People held hands and even kissed without altering the correct social tone or content of their talk. "Because," said Basine, "Oh well, because I love you."