"Well, no; since you are a Basin, and only truth avails, there has been hitherto no deep moral design in my merry orgies at the Neck. But to-night, Vesty, is my grand affair; to be hallowed by the presence of all the Basins: my feast and ball to them, you know--my oldest and best friends. And you--why, Vesty," he went on, in another tone, "you remember we had always a dance a week at the Basin, and you and I led them off together. Come, then, for the sake of old times and the feeling of the rest, though you may enjoy it yourself no more." He spoke with reckless meaning, and his eyes, that had such fatal power of expression in them, looked deep into hers. She paled; the baby threw up a sleeping hand against her face. "There is another thing, Notely," she said. "Gurdon does not like it that you come here for an hour or more every day to sit and talk alone with me while they are at the fishing. He is not much to suspect, and he was always fond of you and trusted you; but it is not doing right by Gurdon." Her eyes looked infinitely sorrowful into his; blushes, like pain, dyed her cheeks. "O Vesty, my pure one!--then tell me that you love me still--love me as you used to do--and I'll go away content, and not come any more. Touch my head as you used to do; kiss me once more, with those words, and----" The baby's white, sleeping palm pressed hard against the mother's burning cheek. "Such words must not be any more, Notely. Go away and be the good, powerful man God meant you to be, and I shall love you more than I ever did in my life." "Saint Vesta! I have lost you!" said Notely: his voice shook with passion; the thin, strong hand that he put up, as if shading his eyes, hid wild and angry tears. "I have been faithfully engaged in the career to which you so tenderly and considerately dedicated me," he went on. "What will you have? I worked last winter like a dog; nothing is easy won, I think: but there is no young man in this State who has been so flattered with public notice as I. I am making my own money--no young man more shrewdly, they say. What will you have? I have growing fame, prosperity, an accomplished society woman for my wife. Was not that what you wished for me?" His words stung. Vesty had her dim look; she had turned cold; her speech groped pitifully. "But I think I saw--I think I understood a little, after all--because I loved you--what are you doing it _for_, Notely?" "Ah, there, indeed!--what for? I have lost my object, you know, Saint Vesta. For fame and frolic and the devil, I suppose--since we are talking face to face with an immortal Basin--and to fill up the time generally." "I am glad that I did what I did," cried the poor girl, her tongue touched with sudden fire, as if from outside herself; "you loved me a little, but you did not love me much!" "Ah!" he caught his breath, his deep eyes thrilled her.