“Girls must find life rather a bore,” said Over, sympathetically. “And I only wish your hero were worthy of you, but, take my word for it, his romantic picturesqueness is only skin—clothes deep. No man is romantic, if it comes to that. I met a long-haired poet once, and when we got him in the smoking-room he was the prosiest of the lot.” “There is no such thing as romance, then?” asked Lydia, with a sigh. “Not when you are ‘up against it,’ to use a bit of your own slang.” As the radiating streets were dark they paced slowly about the plaza. For a time Lydia was silent, and Over drew thoughtfully at his pipe. Finally he asked, curiously: “Do you women really get any satisfaction out of that sort of thing—talking with your eyes and exchanging an occasional note? I mean, of course, unless you have a definite idea that it is going to lead to something?” “We like any little excitement,” said Lydia, dryly, “and the littlest is better than none. I suppose you are too masculine—too British—to understand that!” “Well, yes, I am, rather. I fancy what is the matter with girls is that they don’t have to work as hard as boys—don’t have so many opportunities to work off steam. As for this Johnny, he must be a silly ass if he is content with singing and sighing and rigging himself out. If he isn’t—there lies the danger. He’ll rally his friends and carry you off. Nothing could be simpler.” “I should be quite like Helen—or Mary, Queen of Scots!” “Good Lord!” She flushed under the lash of his voice, but in a moment raised her eyes softly to his. “You are so good,” she murmured. “Really like a brother, so I don’t mind telling you that I am fearfully interested—but not so much in the mere man as in the whole thing. It has all _seemed_ so romantic, at least. I don’t believe an American girl ever had such an experience before. However, I will set your mind at rest—since you are so good as to take an interest in poor little me—I haven’t the slightest desire really to know the man. I should be disenchanted, of course, for I could not stand commonness in the most beautiful husk. But—there is something in one quite independent of all that—of one’s upbringing, one’s prejudices, of common-sense—can’t you understand?—the primeval attraction of man and woman. I have been quite aware that all this could come to nothing, but it has been something to have felt that way for once in a well-regulated lifetime; to have been primal for a fleeting moment _is_ something, I can assure you.” Over groped in the depths of his masculine understanding. “Well, I suppose so. But what of the man? It is a mere experience to you, but it may be a matter of life and death to a poor devil who is nine-tenths fire and sentiment.” “He, too, has something to think about for the rest of his life.” “And you fancy that will satisfy him?” “It will have to.” “You might have spared him.” “There can be no romance without a hero.” “Upon my word, you are the greater savage of the two!”