She looked at him and he was astonished to see that there were tears in her eyes. “Don’t—please!” she pleaded. “Don’t make it harder for me to do what I’ve got to do.”

“Got to do? Nonsense.”

“No, indeed,” said she, intensely in earnest. “Remember, I’m a woman. And a woman has got to do—what’s expected of her.”

“So has a man if he’s the weak sort.”

He studied her with an expression of sympathy bordering[16] on pity, but without the least condescension; on the contrary, with a radiation of equality, of fellow-feeling that was perhaps his greatest charm. “Don’t mind what I’ve said,” he went on in the kindliest, friendliest tone. “I’m not fit to talk with young girls. I’ve got my training altogether in a world where there aren’t any young girls, but only experienced women of one kind and another. You’ve been brought up to a certain sort of life, and the only thing for you to do is to live it. I’ve been talking the creed of my sort of life, and that’s as different from your sort as wild duck from domestic.”

[16]

He rose, gave a significant glance toward the windows through which clear sky and late afternoon light could be seen. She felt rather than saw his hint, and rose also. She looked round, gave a queer little laugh. “Am I awake—or still asleep?” said she. “I’m not feeling—or talking—or acting—a bit like my usual self.” She laughed again a little cynically. “My friends wouldn’t recognize me.” She looked at him, laughed again, with not a trace of cynicism. “I don’t recognize my present self,” she added. “It’s one that never was until I came here.”

But Roger showed no disposition to respond to her coquetry. He said in matter-of-fact tones: “Do you live far? Hadn’t I better take you home?”

[17]“No, no!” she cried. “We mustn’t spoil it.”

[17]

“Spoil what?”

“The romance,” laughed she.

He looked amused, like a much older person at a child’s whimsicalities. “Oh, I see! Once I was in a train in the Alps bound for Paris, and it halted beside a train bound for Constantinople. My window happened to be opposite that of a girl from Syria. We talked for half an hour. Then—we shook hands as the trains drew away from each other. This is to be like that? A good idea.”

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