He withdrew from her a couple of paces,--a glimmer of white teeth between his dark moustache and beard gave his face the expression of a snarl more than a smile.

"For curiosity!" she repeated, stretching out a hand and touching his arm--"To see what the thing that calls itself a man is made of! I did my very best with you, didn't I?--uncouth as you always were and are!--but I did my best! And all Washington thought it was settled! Why wouldn't you do what Washington expected?"

The light of the moon fell full on her upturned face. It was a wonderful face,--not beautiful according to the monotonous press-camera type, but radiant with such a light of daring intelligence as to make beauty itself seem cheap and meretricious in comparison with its glowing animation. He moved away from her another step, and shook his arm free from her touch.

"Why wouldn't you?" she reiterated softly; then with a sudden ripple of laughter, she clasped her hands and uplifted them in an attitude of prayer--"Why wouldn't he? Oh, big moon of California, why? Oh, pagan gods and goddesses and fauns and fairies, tell me why? Why wouldn't he?"

He gave her a glance of cool contempt.

"You should have been on the stage!" he said.

"'All the world's a stage,'" she quoted, letting her upraised arms fall languidly at her sides--"And ours is a real comedy! Not 'As You Like It' but 'As You Don't Like It!' Poor Shakespeare!--he never imagined such characters as we are! Now, suppose you had satisfied the expectations of all Washington City and married me, of course we should have bored each other dreadfully--but with plenty of money we could have run away from each other whenever we liked--they all do it nowadays!"

"Yes--they all do it!" he repeated, mechanically.

"They don't 'love' you know!" she went on--"Love is too much of a bore. YOU would find it so!"

"I should, indeed!" he said, with sudden energy--"It would be worse than any imaginable torture!--to be 'loved' and looked after, and watched and coddled and kissed--"

"Oh, surely no woman would want to kiss you!" she exclaimed--"Never! THAT would be too much of a good thing!"

And she gave a little peal of laughter, merry as the lilt of a sky-lark in the dawn. He stared at her angrily, moved by an insensate desire to seize her and throw her down the hill like a bundle of rubbish.




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