"I wasn't--but I will!" "Oh, I should want a lot more: to begin with, a definite object." "Ah, you're a girl. My opinion of men with definite objects is that they are generally bores." "But the country would not get on without them, would it?" "Don't believe such nonsense, puss. Who's the greater man: Asquith or Foster? Would you sooner be Lloyd George or Bobs? Who's doing more for England--the man who helps to beat the Australians, or the lawyers who put threepence on the income tax? You ask the average man, and see what he says." "The average man has not much brains; he is the servant in the house of intellect. I should never consult him about anything." "Puss, I know what you're thinking about--it's that popgun man." "Rather inconsequent, isn't it? You wouldn't average Mr. Faber?" "No, I suppose he's clever enough. He makes money. Old Baker, our head at school, always used to say that the faculty of making money was one of the most contemptible. But it's useful, I admit." "Oh, yes, we all admit that, and show our contempt of the faculty by worshipping the possessor." "Do you worship John Faber?" "Collectively, yes; individually, not at all." He thought upon it. "I suppose you had a jolly time with him in Paris?" "Oh, my dear Harry, what next? I saw him twice: once in the corridor of the hotel, then in his own rooms." "In his rooms!" "Yes; to tell him I never wished to see him again." "Oh, you brick; that's the best thing I've heard. Of course, I knew you would. There's never been anything said, but you owed that to me--now, didn't you, puss?" She would not answer him. They passed to the vague intimacies of an incomplete amour, in which their whispers were inaudible and the sound of voices in the cabin a warning discord. Eva still played an intolerable waltz. The harbour waves sported about the dinghy, tethered astern. Gabrielle wondered why it was that she was incapable of resisting all this; that she suffered this quite brainless boy to kiss her at his pleasure--a great bear with fearsome limbs cuddling her. Was it because of her twenty-three years of Suburbia? Because of an inherited instinct for the commonplace of the natural life--such a life as all about her lived, and would live in that little world of Hampstead? Or was it purely the call of sex--more potent than a thousand theories, imperious beyond all the laws of emperors and kings? The latter thought did not occur to her. She suffered the spell of the scene, the soft airs of night, the shining stars, the harbour lights, the waxing and waning chords of distant music. Harry's passionate whispers were like a message from afar. She submitted to him as though thus was her destiny written. CHAPTER II LOUIS DE PALEOLOGUE I Do you know Ragusa--Ragusa, the Pearl of the Adriatic?