“Perhaps I mean rather the number of times you’ve formed them.” “Did you ever buy a house?” I replied with some wonder that I had not. “Well, we’ve bought two—this one and the one at Rosyth. But before buying either we rented each for a season to see whether or not we liked it.” “And you did.” “But we’ve rented others which we didn’t. So you see.” “I see that experiments are justified. Is that what you mean?” “If one is satisfied with anything that comes along, by all means take it. But if one only wants what one wants—” “And you know what you want?” Her eyes were all fire; her lips had the daring scarlet of a poppy. “I’ve never got beyond knowing what I don’t want.” “That is, you’ve never taken anything up except in the long run to throw it down?” “Your expressions are too harsh. One doesn’t throw down everything one doesn’t want. One sets it aside.” “And would it be discreet to ask why you—why you set certain things—and people—aside?” She looked at the fire as if considering. “Do you mean—men?” “To narrow the inquiry down, suppose I say I do.” “And”—she threw me a swift, daring glance—“and marriage?” “That defines the question still further.” Her words came as the utterance of long, long thoughts. “One couldn’t marry a man one didn’t trust.” “No; of course not.” “Nor a milksop.” “You couldn’t.” “Nor a man who wasn’t a thoroughbred.” “Just what do you mean by that?” “Oh, don’t you know? If not I can’t explain. All I can say is that there are things a thoroughbred couldn’t do.” “What sort of things?” “Why should you want me to tell you? You know as well as I do. The things that make a man impossible—mean things—ignoble things.” “Criminal things?” “Criminal things, too, I suppose. I don’t know so much about them; but I do see a lot of meanness and pettiness and— Oh, well, the sort of lack of the fastidious in honor that—that puts a man out of the question.” “Aren’t you very hard to please?” “Possibly.” “And if you don’t find what—what you’re looking for?” “I shall do without it, I suppose.” “And if you think you find it—and then discover that, after all—” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve never been absolutely disillusioned so far. When disillusion has come to me—as it has—I could see it on the way. But if I—I cared for some one and found I was deceived in him— But what’s the use in talking of it?” she laughed. “Please don’t think I’m putting forth a claim to be treated better than the average. It’s only when I see the average—” “The average of men?” “No, the average of women. When I see what they’re willing to take—and marry—and live with—I can only say that I find myself very well off as I am.” This conversation did not make it easier for me to go back to the starting-point of our acquaintance; but the moment came when I did it. _CHAPTER XVI_ I did not, however, do it that spring, since the event that compelled me at last to the step took up all my attention.