"His was a poet’s soul," said Cleland, "—but he probably took an Iroquois scalp when unobserved, and skinned living and dead impartially in his fur transactions." "Some degenerate son of honest English stock, I suppose," nodded Helen. "Yet, he had the simplicity of the Cavalier verse-makers in his gracious heart.... Well, for his sake——" She laid a June rose on the weather-ravaged dial. "God rest him, anyway!" she added lightly. "There’s a devil in every one of us." "Not in you, darling," cooed Stephanie, enlacing her waist. "If there ever was, he’s dead." "I wonder." ... She glanced deliberately at Cleland, then smiled: "There was a bully romance I read in extreme youth, in which an old swashbuckler was always exclaiming: ’Courage! The devil is dead!’ And since I have realized that I, also, harboured a devil, the memory of that cheery war-cry always puts me on my mettle to slay him.... It’s a good fight, Jim," she added, serenely. "But a really good fight is never finished, you know. And it’s better to end the story with, ’so they lived to fight happily ever after,’ than to announce that the problem is solved, the romance ended for eternity." In the pink dusk she picked her way over the dewy grass toward the porch, saying carelessly that her ancient bones resented dampness. Stephanie, resting against the sun-dial, inhaled the sweetness of the iris and spoke of it. "The flowers are lilac-grey, like your eyes," he said. "The scent expresses you to me—faintly sweet—a young, fresh, delicate odour—_you_—in terms of perfume." "_Such_ a poet! ... But you know one never should touch the petals of an iris.... The indiscreet imprint remains." "Have I left any imprint?" "I should say you had! Do you suppose my mind isn’t busy most of the time remembering your—imprints?" "Is it?" "Does it comfort you to know it? Nobody else ever pawed me." "A nice way to put it!" he remarked. She shrugged: "I don’t know how it was I first permitted it—came to endure it——" She lifted her grey eyes deliberately, "—invited it ... because I came to expect it—wish for it——" She bit her lip and made a quick gesture with clenched hand. "Oh, Jim, I’m no good! Here I am married, and as nonchalantly unfaithful to my vows as you care to make me——" She turned abruptly and walked across the lawn toward the willows that fringed the stream, moving leisurely, pensively, her hands linked behind her back. He rejoined her at the willows and they slowly entered the misty belt of trees together. "If you knew," she said, "what a futile, irresolute, irresponsible creature I am, you wouldn’t waste real love on me. There’s nothing to me except feminine restlessness, mental and physical, and it urges, urges, urges me to wander frivolously in pursuit of God knows what—_I_ don’t! But always my mind is a traveller impatient to go a-gypsying, and my feet beat the devil’s tattoo——"