"I am sure you would; but your education has been so different. Upon this earth," says Bebe, slowly, "there is nothing so mean or so despicable as a woman born and bred as I am. Taught from our cradles to look on money and money's worth as the principal good to be obtained in life; with the watchwords, 'an excellent match,' 'a rich marriage,' 'an eligible _parti_,' drummed into our ears from the time we put on sashes and short frocks. There is something desperately unwholesome about the whole thing." "Did you never see him since?" ask I, deeply impressed by her manner and the love-affair generally. "Never until to-night. You may fancy what a shock it was." "And he didn't even _kiss_ you before going away, as he thought, forever?" I exclaim, unwisely. "Kiss me," severely. "How do you mean, Phyllis? Of course he did not kiss me: why should he?" "Oh, I don't know. I suppose it would have been unusual," I return, overwhelmed with confusion. "Only it seemed to me--I mean it is so _good_ to be kissed by one we love." "Is it?" coldly. "I am not fond of kissing." I hasten to change the subject. "When he was gone, how wretched you must have felt!" "I suppose I did. But I shed no tears; I was too unhappy, I think, for mere crying. However,"--with sudden recklessness--"it is all over now, and we have lived through it. Let us forget it. A month after the scene I have just described, the old lord and his sons were drowned, and Travers Everett came in for everything. You see what I lost by being mercenary." "I wonder, when he became so rich, he did not come back directly and ask you all over again." "He knew rather better than that, I take it," says Bebe, with a slight accession of _hauteur_; and for the second time I feel ashamed of myself and my ignoble sentiments. "He went abroad and stayed there until now. He don't look as though he had pined over-much, does he?"--with a laugh--"A broken heart is the most curable thing I know. I thought I had never seen him look so well." "A man cannot pine forever," I say, in defense of the absent. Then, rather nervously, "I wonder when you will marry now, Bebe?" "Never, most probably," kneeling down on the hearth-rug. "You see I threw away my good luck. Fortune will scarcely be so complaisant a second time." says Bebe, with a gay laugh, laying her head down upon my lap; and then in another moment I become aware that she is Bobbing passionately. The tears rise thickly to my own eyes, yet I find no words to comfort her. I keep silence, and suffer my fingers to wander caressingly through her dark tresses as they lie scattered across my knees. Perhaps the greatest eloquence would not have been so acceptable as that silent touch. In a very short time the storm passes, and Bebe, raising her face, covers it with her hands. "I have _not_ been crying," she says, with wilful vehemence; "you must not think I have. If you do, I will never be your friend again. How dare you say I shed tears for any man?"