' She blew on her golden whistle, and up trotted the
obedient Bezigue.
That evening Paul said to himself, 'I vastly fear that something
serious _has_ happened to you. No, she's everything you like, but she
_isn't_ that sort.'
He was depressed, dejected; the reaction, no doubt, from the
excitement of her presence. 'She's married, of course; and of course
she's got a lover. And of course she'll never care a pin for the
likes of me. And of course she sees what's the matter with me, and is
laughing in her sleeve. And I had thought myself impervious. Oh, damn
all women.'
X.
'Don't stop; ride on,' he called out to her, next morning, 'I shan't
be amusing to-day. I'm frightfully low in my mind.'
'Perhaps it will amuse me to study you in a new aspect,' she said.
'You can entertain me with the story of your griefs.'
'Bare my wounds to make a lady smile. Oh, anything to oblige you.'
She leapt lightly from Bezigue, and sank upon the moss.
'What is it all about?'
'Oh, not what you imagine,' said he. 'It's about my debts.'
'I had hoped it was about your sins.'
'_My_ sins! I'm kept awake at night by the thought of _yours_.'
'Your conscience is too sensitive. Mine are but peccadillos.'
'You say that because you've no sense of moral proportion. Are
cruelty and dissimulation pecadillos?'
'They may be even virtues.
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