For there came a knock at his door after his second day of absenting himself, and when he incautiously opened it, she marched in and took him gaily into her unembarrassed arms and bestowed upon his astonished countenance a hearty, wholesome and vigorous smack. Moreover, she laughed and jeered and tormented and poked merciless fun at him until she had badgered and worried and hectored and beaten the sulkiness out of him. Then she admonished him: "Don’t ever do it again!" she said. "We are free, you and I. What we are to each other alone concerns us, not what we may choose to do or be to others." "You don’t care what I do, Steve," he said. "I care what you do to me!" "How I behave otherwise doesn’t concern you?" "No. It would be an impertinence for me to meddle. For," she added in smiling paraphrase: "If you are not nice to me What care I how nice you be— to other girls?" "Do you really mean that it wouldn’t make any difference to you what I do? Suppose I take you at your word and become enamoured of some girl and devote myself to her?" "You mean a nice girl, don’t you?" she inquired. "Any old kind." She considered the matter, surprised. "I couldn’t interfere with your personal liberty," she concluded, "—whatever you choose to do." "How would you feel about my frequenting some pretty studio model, for example?" "I haven’t the least idea." "It wouldn’t affect you one way or the other, then?" "It ought not to—provided you are always nice to me." "That," he exclaimed, "is a cold-blooded, fishy creed!" "That’s the creed of tolerance, Jim." "All right. Live up to it, then. And I’ll try to, too," he added drily. "Because, sometimes when you’re off, God knows where, with Grismer, I feel lonely enough to drift with the first attractive girl I come across." "Why don’t you?" she asked, flushing slightly. "The reason I haven’t," he said, "is because I’m in love with you." She was standing with head bent, but now she looked up quickly. "You adorable infant," she laughed. "What a child you really are, after all! Come," she added mischievously, "let’s kiss like good children and let the gods occupy themselves with our future. It’s their business, not ours. I’m glad you think you’re in love with me. But, Jim, I’m in love with life. And you’re such an important part of life that, naturally, I include you!" She bent forward and touched his lips with hers, daintily, deftly avoiding his arms, her eyes gay with malice. "No," she laughed, "not that, if you please, dear friend! It rumples and raises the deuce with my hair and gown. But we _are_ friends again, aren’t we, Jim?" "Yes," he said in a low voice, "—if you can give me no more than friendship." "It’s the most wonderful thing in the world!" she insisted. "You’ve read that somewhere." "You annoy me, Jim! It is my own conclusion. There’s nothing finer for anybody—unless they want children. And I don’t."