"Do you remember the way you used to talk at Matlock, just after I found you there? You _were_ such a rum little thing. You said it would be very much better if we hadn't any bodies, so that people could fall in love in a prettier way, and only be married spiritually. You said God ought to have arranged things on that footing. You looked so miserable when you said it. By the way, I wouldn't go about saying that sort of thing to people. That's how I spotted you. I know men think it's one of the symptoms." "Symptoms of what?" "Of that state of mind. When a woman comes to me and talks about being spiritual, I always know she isn't--at the moment. You asked me, Bunny--the second time I met you--if I believed in spiritual love, and all that. I didn't, and I don't. When you're gone on a man all you want is to get him, and keep him to yourself. I dare say it feels jolly spiritual--especially, when you're not sure of the man--but it isn't. If you're gone on him enough to give him up when you've got him, there might be some spirituality in _that_. I shall believe in it when I see it done." "Seriously," she continued, "if you'd been married, Bunny, you wouldn't have had half such a beastly time. You're one of those leaning, clinging little women who require a strong, safe man to support them. You ought to be married." Miss Keating smiled a little sad, spiritual smile, and said that was the last thing she wanted. "Well," said Kitty, "I didn't say it was the first." Kitty's smile was neither sad nor spiritual. She uncurled herself, got up, and stood over her companion, stroking her sleek, thin hair. Miss Keating purred under the caress. She held up her hand to Kitty who took it and gave it a squeeze before she let it go. "Poor Bunny. Nice Bunny," she said (as if Miss Keating were an animal). She stretched out her arms, turned, and disappeared through the lounge into the billiard-room. CHAPTER III It could not be denied that Kitty had a charm. Miss Keating was not denying it, even now, when she was saying to herself that Kitty had a way of attracting very disagreeable attention. At first she had supposed that this was an effect of Kitty's charm, disagreeable to Kitty. Then, even in the beginning, she had seen that there was something deliberate and perpetual in Kitty's challenge of the public eye. The public eye, so far from pursuing Kitty, was itself pursued, tracked down and captured. Kitty couldn't let it go. Publicity was what Kitty coveted. She had then supposed that Kitty was used to it; that she was, in some mysterious way, a personage. There would be temptations, she had imagined, for any one who had a charm that lived thus in the public eye.