And Marcello came back, before he had taken four steps.

“Is that what you meant when you said that you might never come here again?” he asked, and there was something rough in his tone that pleased her.

“No,” she answered, as if nothing had happened.  “Mamma talked to me a long time last night.”

“What did she say?”

“Do you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“There is no reason why I should not tell you.  She says that we must not come here after I go into society, because people will think that she is trying to marry me to you.”

She looked at him boldly for a moment, and then turned her eyes to the sea.

“Why should she care what people think?” he asked.

“Because it would prevent me from marrying any one else,” answered Aurora, with the awful cynicism of youth.  “If every one thought I was engaged to you, or going to be, no other man could ask for me.  It’s simple enough, I’m sure!”

“And you wish other men to ask you to marry them, I suppose?”

Marcello was a little pale, but he tried to throw all the contempt he could command into his tone.  Aurora smiled sweetly.

“Naturally,” she said.  “I’m only a woman.”

“Which means that I’m a fool to care for you!”

“You are, if you think I’m not worth caring for.”  The girl laughed.

This was so very hard to understand that Marcello knit his smooth young brow and looked very angry, but could find nothing to say on the spur of the moment.  All women are born with the power to put a man into such a position that he must either contradict himself, hold his tongue, or fly into a senseless rage.  They do this so easily, that even after the experience of a life-time we never suspect the trap until they pull the string and we are caught.  Then, if we contradict ourselves, woman utters an inhuman cry of triumph and jeers at our unstable purpose; if we lose our tempers instead, she bursts into tears and calls us brutes; and finally, if we say nothing, she declares, with a show of reason, that we have nothing to say.

[Illustration:  “He flushed again, very angry this time, and he moved away to leave her, without another word.”]

Marcello lost his temper.

“You are quite right,” he said angrily.  “You are not worth caring for.  You are a mere child, and you are a miserable little flirt already, and you will be a detestable woman when you grow up!  You will lead men on, and play with them, and then laugh at them.  But you shall not laugh at me again.  You shall not have that satisfaction!  You shall wish me back, but I will not come, not if you break your silly little heart!”