"I can't say," he answered. "I haven't the right to tell you." "Why?" "It isn't only mine to tell," he said. "It's hers, you mean?" she exclaimed. "Everything's hers, I suppose, now; everything that you once could call your own! Did you ever share your life with _me_ in that fashion?" "You forget," he said gravely. "_She_ shares herself." Ethel Vernon leaned towards him fiercely. "Do you mean----" she began impetuously, and stopped. He turned and looked steadily into her angry eyes. Her quick breath spread the starlight to a vague and smoky blueness among the gleaming sequins on her breast. "Yes," he said, "that is probably what I _do_ mean. First or last, whatever you may call her, it's the woman's self that counts." She remained for a moment with her eyes still passionately alight, and something visible even in the dusk upon her face which she would and would not say. Then her mouth hardened, and she flung herself back in her chair. "I hate you," she cried. "No," he said with a sigh; "you hate the fact. Every woman does whom it doesn't profit." There was nothing said between them for some minutes, and Caragh could hear the silk ripple as her foot swung to and fro among the ruchings of her skirt. The sound brought back another silence, when she had sat beside him on an English summer evening in a dusk almost as deep; brought back the hour from that scented night when, with the spells of strangeness still upon her charm, he had listened to her ankles' silken whisper, and felt in the dark the unendurable sweetness of her presence rob his life of its desires. He was carried so far by the memory that the change in her voice startled him when she spoke again. "What did you tell her about me," she demanded. "I didn't tell her anything," he said. "She hasn't asked about your past?" "Not yet." "You think she won't?" "Oh, no, I don't," he smiled. "And when she does! Will you tell her the usual lie?" "Did I tell it to you?" "You didn't ask me to marry you," she thrust back. "One treats the woman differently that one's going to _share_." "Yes," he admitted doubtfully, "it's very possible one does. Only I think the sharing works the other way. One tells her the truth in common honesty." "Never!" she exclaimed. "You tell her the truth in transcendental lunacy, and wish you'd bitten your tongue out five minutes later when you see she thinks you a sweep." He turned towards her with a smile. "I'm afraid my transcendental lunacies are about done," he said. She laughed. "To judge by the last of them," she retorted. "The last of them!" he exclaimed reprovingly. "You shouldn't speak of marriage by so wild a name." "I don't," she said shortly; "only of yours. Will you swear to me that you love her?" "Willingly," he answered, "if you're unwise enough to ask." "To ask for an oath which would have no meaning?" "None whatever," he replied. "What would you expect?" "The truth!" she said. "Isn't it due to me?"