For an instant the smile remained stamped on their lips; then the slight strain became perceptible, a moment only, for she turned lightly away and seated herself on the edge of a big hanging seat. "More Macy," she nodded ruefully. "We’ll all have to fast to-morrow.... You may sit here, too, if you wish.’" A family of starlings were nesting in the cornices of the roof across the way, and the two young people watched the old birds for a while flying to the park and returning with food for their invisible young. "Horrid, isn’t it?" observed Diana. "But that’s the way of things. No sooner are you married and happy than—zip! the scene changes, and you turn into a wretched purveyor of nourishment for the next generation. Carpe diem!" "Cede Deo! It’s probably good fun," commented Edgerton. "What? Slaving for others just when you are all ready for real happiness?" "_That’s_ happiness, or nobody would do it—not even those birds." "It’s instinct!" "Maybe with birds. Instincts are all right for birds, but we humans are usually arrested when we follow our instincts." She laughed. "That _is_ true; it’s neither instinct nor happiness that makes us slaves to babies:—it’s duty." "If that were all it is," he said, "the state would be nourishing the majority of infants. No; it’s probably fun, Diana. That’s the only possible explanation." She shrugged her dainty shoulders and looked at the westering sun above Staten Island; and in the gesture she seemed, in pantomime, to discard all feminine duties, cares, and responsibilities forever. Then as she rested there, cheek on hand, her blue eyes grew vaguer. "I am glad you came into our lives," she said; "I mean it this time." "I am glad, too," he said seriously. "You are now; I can see that.... How soon will you be sorry?" "Why?" She turned toward him. "How soon will the novelty tire you?" "I have not considered you as a novelty." "But I am; I’m a mechanical toy. My paint soon comes off, cousin." "You’re my own kin. There’s no novelty, as you call it, in kinship, nothing evanescent." She said: "Do you really and deliberately desire to stand by that extremely tenuous and attenuated tie? An attitude of that sort entails duties. You may have much to overlook in us—even much to forgive. Are you aware of your responsibilities?" "I assumed them when I asked to be admitted to your partnership." "Why _did_ you ask to join?" "The real reason?" She hesitated, looking at him. "Yes, the real one." "You." "What exactly do you mean by that answer?" "I don’t know, myself, Japonette," he said laughingly; "I’ve tried to analyze it, too. The instinct of relationship may have counted." "I hope it did," said she. "I hope so. God knows, and men are selfish.... And _that_ counted, too." "What?" "Selfishness." "I don’t believe there is very much in you." "That is where your heart is still a child’s heart, Japonette."