“You mean she’s careful?”

“I mean nothing—­do you?”

With a determined movement she sprang into a sitting position, and drawing the cushions beneath her arm, rested her elbow, bare under the flowing sleeve, upon the luxurious pile of down.  He saw the dent made by her figure in the green satin covers, and it gave him a sensation of pleasure while he watched it fade out slowly.

“I—­oh, I mean a great deal,” she responded in her reckless voice, “I’m as clear, I’ve always said, as running water, and what you mistake for flippancy is merely my philosophy.”

“A philosophy!” he laughed, “then you’ve gone too deep for me.”

“Oh, it isn’t deep—­it’s only this,” she rejoined gayly, “he laughs best who laughs most.”

“And not who laughs last?”

She shook her head as she played nervously with the lace upon her sleeve.  “No, because the last laugh is apt to be a death rattle.”

“You give me the shivers,” he protested, with a mock shudder, “do you know you are always clever when you are jealous?”

“But I am not jealous,” she retorted indignantly; “there’s nobody on earth that’s worth it—­and besides I’m too happy.  I’m as happy as the very happiest human being you know.  Who’s that?”

He thought attentively for a moment:  “By Jove, I believe it’s Roger Adams,” he replied, amazed at his discovery.

For a while Gerty leaned back upon her pillows and considered the question with closed eyes.  “I think you’re right,” she admitted at last, “but why?  Why?  What on earth has he ever got from life?”

“He has got a wife,” he retorted, with his genial irony.

“Well, I suppose he congratulates himself that he hasn’t two,” was her flippant rejoinder.

Kemper laughed shortly.  “I’m not sure that she doesn’t equal a good half dozen.”

“And yet he is happy,” said Gerty thoughtfully.  “I don’t know why and I doubt if he knows either—­but I truly and honestly believe he’s the happiest man I’ve ever met.  Perhaps,” she concluded with a quick return to her shallow wit, “it’s because he doesn’t divide his waking hours between dressmakers and bridge whist.”

“But why do you if it bores you so,” protested Kemper, “I’d be hanged before I’d do it in your place.”

The little half angry, half weary frown drew her eyebrows together, and she sat for a minute restlessly tapping her slippered foot upon the floor.  “Oh, why do women lie and cheat and back-bite and strangle the little souls within them—­to please men.  Your amusements are built on our long boredom.”

Was it merely the trick of pathos again, he wondered, or did the weariness in her voice sound as true as sorrow?  Was she, indeed, as Laura so ardently believed, capable of larger means, of finer issues, and was her very audacity of speech but a kind of wild mourning for the soul that she had killed?  A month ago he would not have asked himself the question, but his feeling for Laura had brought with it, though unconsciously, a deeper feeling for life.