She is stroking out all the lines in his face with the tip of her finger; then she runs it through his hair. He twists his head half impatiently; she desists. "I divide all the people in the world," she says, "into those who like their hair played with, and those who don't. Having my hair brushed gives me more pleasure than anything else; it's delicious. I'd _purr_ if I knew how. I notice," meditatively, "I am never in sympathy with those who don't like it. I am with those who do; I always get on with them." "You are a queer little devil!" "Am I? I shouldn't have thought you would have found out I was the latter at all. I wish I were a man! I believe if I were a man, I'd be a disgrace to my family." "Why?" "I'd go on a jolly old spree!" He laughs: "Poor little woman! is it so dull?" There is a gleam of deviltry in her eyes, and she whispers solemnly,-- "Begin with a D," and she traces imaginary letters across his forehead, and ending with a flick over his ear, says, "and that is the tail of the y!" After a short silence she queries: "Are you fond of me?" She is rubbing her chin up and down his face. "Of course I am, don't you know it?" "Yes, perhaps I do," impatiently; "but I want to be told it. A woman doesn't care a fig for a love as deep as the death-sea and as silent; she wants something that tells her it in little waves all the time. It isn't the _love_, you know, it's the _being loved_; it isn't really the _man_, it's his _loving_!" "By Jove, you're a rum un!" "I wish I wasn't, then. I wish I was as commonplace as--You don't tell me anything about myself," a fierce little kiss; "you might, even if it were lies. Other men who cared for me told me things about my eyes, my hands, anything. I don't believe you notice." "Yes I _do_, little one, only I think it." "Yes, but I don't care a bit for your thinking; if I can't see what's in your head, what good is it to me?" "I wish I could understand you, dear!" "I wish to God you could! Perhaps if you were badder and I were gooder we'd meet half-way. _You_ are an awfully good old chap; it's just men like you send women like me to the devil!" "But you are good," kissing her,--"a real good chum! You understand a fellow's weak points; you don't blow him up if he gets on a bit. Why," enthusiastically, "being married to you is like chumming with a chap! Why," admiringly, "do you remember before we were married, when I let that card fall out of my pocket? Why, I couldn't have told another girl about her! she wouldn't have believed that I _was_ straight; she'd have thrown me over, and you sent her a quid because she was sick. You are a great little woman!" "Don't see it!" she is biting his ear. "Perhaps I was a man last time, and some hereditary memories are cropping up in this incarnation!" He looks so utterly at sea that she must laugh again, and, kneeling up, shuts his eyes with kisses, and bites his chin and shakes it like a terrier in her strong little teeth.