All this time his eyes had never left her face, and she grew restive under the intensity of his scrutiny, flushing and paling, while the hand that held the fleecy drapery about her throat and neck trembled. "Patty," he said at last, in a voice set in a lower key than usual. "Patty, it is ten long years since we stood thus, alone together. Do you remember the last time we met and--parted?" She did not answer him at first, but moved away from him some paces, and halted beside the fountain; the marble rim that surrounded the basin was broad and high, she seated herself upon it, and turning her face looked upward at Philip, who had followed her. Not more cold, or hard, or irresponsive was the face of the boy Narcissus behind her, than was the fair impassive beauty of her face. The springing jet of water had ceased to flow, and only a few drops fell now and then from the upheld vase; they seemed like echoes from the past years falling slowly, slowly, one by one. When she spoke her voice was calm and composed, though Philip, accustomed to its fuller cadences, caught here and there a flat note in its ebb and flow. "I find you are as inconsequent and as tactless as ever, Philip," she said; and though she dropped her previous formality of address, his name gained nothing in her using of it. "You were always a sad bungler; fancy reminding a woman of her existence ten years ago! And then expecting her to remember her words and actions at that time! My dear Philip you are speaking of ancient history; why not tell me at once that Queen Anne is dead, and expect me to be astonished? A woman remembers nothing of her past, save her conquests and her gowns. The one tells upon her vanity, the other tells upon her purse." She laughed again, lightly; and drawing off her glove dipped one hand in the dark water, stirring its surface into a hundred rippling smiles, and scattering the drops in a shower of prismatic spherules. "I know it is the fashion of your world, Patricia," Philip replied, quietly, "to scoff at all things; so narrow are the limits of this nineteenth-century philosophy that what we cannot understand we disbelieve, what we do not wish to recall we deny, and what we are forced to accept we despise. It is a cruel creed even for men, on the lips of a woman it becomes detestable. You may scoff as you please, Patricia, you cannot change or alter the old laws of God; as long as man is man and woman, woman, memory and remorse must have a place within their consciousness; and no matter how hard or callous you may have grown, or how learned in the world's theology, you cannot entirely quench the attributes bestowed upon you, when you became not only a beautiful creation, but a woman of soul and reason. The last ten years cannot be a blank to you, any more than our last meeting and parting can be."