"Yes--amused. She laughed,--she looks very pretty when she laughs. And--and she seemed to fancy--" He lifted himself upright in a sitting posture. "Seemed to fancy? ... what?--" "That I was not bad to look at--" and Manella, gathering sudden boldness, lifted her dark eyes to his face--"She said I could tell you that she thinks me quite beautiful! Yes!--quite beautiful!" He smiled--a smile that was more like a sneer. "So you are! I've told you so, often. 'There needs no ghost come from the grave' to emphasise the fact. But she--the purring cat!--she told you to repeat her opinion to me, because--can you guess why?" "No!" "Simpleton! Because she wishes you to convey to me the message that she considers me your lover and that she admires my taste! Now she'll go back to New York full of the story! Subtle little devil! But I am not your lover, and never shall be,--not even for half an hour!" Manella sprang up from the turf where she had been sitting. "I know that!" she said, and her splendid eyes flashed proud defiance--"I know I have been a fool to let myself care for you! I do not know why I did--it was an illness! But I am well now!" "You are well now? Good! O let us be joyful! Keep well, Manella!--and be 'quite beautiful'--as you are! To be quite beautiful is a fine thing--not so fine as it used to be in the Greek period--still, it has its advantages! I wonder what you will do with your beauty?" As he spoke, he rose, stretching and shaking him self like a forest animal. "What will you do with it?" he repeated--"You must give it to somebody! You must transmit it to your offspring! That's the old law of nature--it's getting a bit monotonous, still it's the law! Now she--the wonderful white woman--she's all for upsetting the law! Fortunately she's not beautiful--" "She IS!" exclaimed Manella--"_I_ think her so!" He looked down upon her from his superior height with a tolerant amusement. "Really! YOU think her so! And SHE thinks you so! Quite a mutual admiration society! And both of you obsessed by the same one man! I pity that man! The only thing for him to do is to keep out of it! No, Manella!--think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE beautiful. But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God for that! SHE is outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her cleverness makes her see the sham of life all through; the absurdity of birth that ends in death--the freakishness of civilisation to no purpose--and she's out for something else. She wants some thing newer than sex-attraction and family life. A husband would bore her to extinction--the care of children would send her into a lunatic asylum!" Manella looked bewildered. "I cannot understand!" she said--"A woman lives for husband and children!"