“You cannot do more than suppose? People will hardly understand you if you can only ‘suppose’ you are happy!” She flashed a look upon him of disdain which he felt rather than saw. “Do I expect people to understand me?” she demanded. “Do I wish them to do so? I am as indifferent to ‘people’ and their opinions as you are!” “That is saying a great deal!” he rejoined. “But,--I am a man--you are a woman. Women must study conventions----” “I need not,” she interrupted him. “Nor should you speak of my sex, since you yourself say I am sexless.” He was silent. She had given him a straight answer. Some words of a great scientist from whom he had gained much of his own knowledge came back to his memory: “To attain true and lasting life, all passions must be subjugated,--all animosities of nature destroyed. Attraction draws, not only its own to itself, but the aura or spirit of other things which it appropriates so far as it is able. And this appropriation or fusion of elements is either life-giving or destructive.” He repeated the words “This appropriation or fusion of elements is either life-giving or destructive”--to himself, finding a new force in their meaning and application. “Diana,” he said, presently, “I am beginning to find you rather a difficult puzzle!” “I have found myself so for some time,” she answered. “But it does not matter. Nothing really matters.” “Nothing?” he queried. “Not even love? That used to be a great matter with you!” She laughed, coldly. “Love is a delusion,” she said. “And no doubt I ‘used’ to think the delusion a reality. I know better now.” He turned the helm about, and their boat began to run homeward, its lateen sail glistening like the uplifted wing of a sea-gull. Above them, the snowy Alpine range showed white as the tips of frozen waves--beneath, the water rippled blue-black, breaking now and again into streaks of silver. “I’m afraid you have imbibed some of my cynicism,” he said, slowly. “It is, perhaps, a pity! For now, when you have come to think love a ‘delusion,’ you will be greatly loved! It is always the way! If you have nothing to give to men, it is then they clamour for everything!” He looked at her as he spoke and saw her smile--a cruel little smile. “You are lovely now,” he went on, “and you will be lovelier. For all I can tell, you may attain an almost maddening beauty. And a sexless beauty is like that of a goddess,--slaying its votaries as with lightning. Supposing this to be so with you, you should learn to love!--if only out of pity for those whom your indifference might destroy!” She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him curiously. The moonlight showed his dark, inscrutable face, and the glitter of the steely eyes under the black lashes, and there was a shadow of melancholy upon his features.