He had seldom, he might say he had never, seen Philippa in so agreeable a mood. She had sunk her sex. She was tired of her terrible game, the game that Straker saw through; she was playing another one, a secret, innocent, delightful game. She laid herself out to amuse Straker, instead of laying _him_ out (as he put it), on the table, to amuse herself. "Philippa," he said, "you've been adorable for the last half hour." "For the last half hour I've been myself." She smiled as if to herself, a secret, meditative smile. The mystery of it was not lost on Straker. "I can always be myself," she said, "when I'm with you." "For half an hour," he murmured. She went on. "You're not tiresome, like the others. I don't know what there is about you, but you don't bore me." "Perhaps not--for half an hour." "Not for millions of half hours." "Consecutive?" "Oh, yes." She tilted her head back and gazed at him with eyes narrowed and slanting under their deep lids. "Not in an immortality," she said. She laughed aloud her joyous appreciation of him. Straker was neither uplifted nor alarmed. He knew exactly where he stood with her. She was not considering him; she was not trying to get at him; she was aware of his illumination and his disenchantment; she was also aware of his continuous interest in her, and it was his continuous interest, the study that he made of her, that interested Philippa. She was anxious that he should get her right, that he should accept her rendering of herself. She knew at each moment what he was thinking of her, and the thing that went on between them was not a game--it was a duel, an amicable duel, between her lucidity and his. Philippa respected his lucidity. "All the same," said Straker, "I am not the most amusing man you know. You don't find me exciting." "No." She turned it over. "No; I don't find you at all exciting _or_ very amusing. How is it, then, that you don't bore me?" "How can I say?" "I think it is because you're so serious, because you take me seriously." "But I don't. Not for a moment. As for an immortality of seriousness----" "At least," she said, "you would admit that possibly I might have a soul. At any rate, you behave as if you did." He dodged it dexterously. "That's where the immortality comes in, is it?" "Of _course_," said Philippa. V She went on amusing Straker all evening, and after dinner she made him take her into the conservatory. The conservatory at Amberley is built out fanwise from the big west drawing-room on to the southwest corner of the terrace; it is furnished as a convenient lounge, and you sit there drinking coffee, and smoking, and admiring Brocklebank's roses, which are the glory of Amberley. And all among Brocklebank's roses they came upon Furnival and Mrs. Viveash.