Valerie laughed:  “That gives us the more liberty, doesn’t it?”

“It’s up to us, dear.  We are our own law, social and spiritual.  If we live inside it we are not going to be any too happy.  If we live without it—­I don’t know.  Sometimes I wonder whether some of the pretty girls you and I see at Rector’s—­”

“I’ve wondered, too....  They look happy—­some of them.”

“I suppose they are—­for a while....  But the worst of it is that it never lasts.”

“I suppose not.”  Valerie pondered, grave, velvet-eyed, idly twisting a grass stem.

“After all,” she said, “perhaps a brief happiness—­with love—­is worth the consequences.”

“Many women risk it....  I wonder how many men, if social conditions were reversed, would risk it?  Not many, Valerie.”

They remained silent; Rita lay in the shadow of the maples, eyes closed; Valerie plaited her grass stems with absent-minded industry.

“I never yet wished to marry a man,” she observed, presently.

Rita made no response.

“Because,” continued the girl with quaint precision, “I never yet wanted anything that was not offered freely; even friendship.  I think—­I don’t know—­but I think—­if any man offered me love—­and I found that I could respond—­I think that, if I took it, I’d be contented with love—­and ask nothing further—­wish nothing else—­unless he wanted it, too.”

Rita opened her eyes.

Valerie, plaiting her grass very deftly, smiled to herself.

“I don’t know much about love, Rita; but I believe it is supreme contentment.  And if it is—­what is the use of asking for more than contents one?”

“It’s safer.”

“Oh—­I know that....  I’ve read enough newspapers and novels and real literature to know that.  Incidentally the Scriptures treat of it....  But, after all, love is love.  You can’t make it more than it is by law and custom; you can’t make it less; you can’t summon it; you can’t dismiss it....  And I believe that I’d be inclined to take it, however offered, if it were really love.”

“That is unmoral, dear,” said Rita, smiling.

“I’m not unmoral, am I?”

“Well—­your philosophy sounds Pagan.”

“Does it?  Then, as you say, perhaps I’d better run if anything resembling love threatens me.”

“The nymphs ran—­in Pagan times.”

“And the gods ran after them,” returned Valerie, laughing.  “I’ve a very fine specimen of god as a friend, by the way—­a Protean gentleman with three quick-change stunts.  He’s a perfectly good god, too, but he never ran after me or tried to kiss me.”

“You don’t mean Querida, then.”

“No.  He’s no god.”

“Demi-god.”

“Not even that,” said Valerie; “he’s a sentimental shepherd who likes to lie with his handsome head in a girl’s lap and make lazy eyes at her.”

“I know,” nodded Rita.  “Look out for that shepherd.”