Presently she woke up and said, "Will any one tell me why a woman like that should be allowed to ruin his young life?" "All young men have nine lives like a cat, there will be eight left for you to ruin, when you get him--but you never will." I always add this not to raise false hopes. "And, goodness me, you can't expect to get a young man all to yourself, as fresh and shining as a new pin!" "Yes, I do!" said Ariadne crossly. "I want a safety-pin even. I am a new pin myself--I have never loved anybody but Simon, now have I?" I didn't answer that, but said I did wish we might turn over and go to sleep, when Christina rapped on the wall with a hairbrush and begged us to be quiet. "Yes. All right! We will!" I yelled, and I certainly wouldn't have said another word, but Ariadne began again, five minutes later. "Tempe, why do these wretched married women--I'd be ashamed to be one--always want everybody at once? She has got Mr. Pawky, and----" "Mr. Pawky is only for money," I said. I was not going to tell her about her dear Simon paying Lady Scilly's bills as well as poor Pawky. "And Simon's for love, then--oh dear! And George for literature. I am prettier than her, Tempe? Say I am--oh say I am, I want to hear you say it." "I won't say it. You are far too conceited already." "That is the same as saying it," answered Ariadne, and got calmer. "And at all events I am real, and that's more than she can say. I don't have to peel off my charms and put them away in a drawer like she has to." (Ariadne is able to put her poems quite in grammar, but I suppose she thinks it unnecessary to be always at a stretch.) "I don't believe realness counts at all with young men," I said. "I believe they really and truly enjoy kissing paint, and groping about the floor for pin curls when they've done, and powder on their shoulders when they go out into the street from calling." "Goodness!" cried Ariadne, almost shrieking, "you don't suppose Simon ever went as far as kissing her? If I thought that, I'd----" "What?" "Never let him kiss me again. He hasn't of course, yet! Oh, Tempe, I wish he had!" "There you go!" I cried out, sick of her changeableness. "First you want him not to, then you wish he had. And the poor thing must kiss somebody--he's got no mother, and kissing Almeria would be like kissing a cactus or cuddling a porcupine. Do please keep to your own part of the bed, you don't respect the strap a bit! I shall be on the floor in a minute. I'm lying right in the hem of the sheet now." Ariadne kindly made a little more room for me as I was patiently listening to her, and went on. "Tempe, I have learned in three short seasons some of the bitter truths of so-called society----" Just then, as any one could have foretold from the noise we were making, Christina walked right into the room. "Will you two children be quiet! Why are you crying, Ariadne?"