“I can understand that.  I’ve felt it in your lectures.  You’re so much wiser than most people.”

“What rubbish!” he said with a laugh, wondering again if she were sincere.  “Much less, very much less wise than most people.”

“If you tell me that I’ll be wishing you’d not come.  I’m counting everything on your being wiser than other people—­and shining—­like your lectures.  But Louis once said that people usually think much better than they can do—­”

“That was very penetrating of Louis,” he said.  Then—­“I hope I don’t disappoint you.  I do—­most people.  Women especially—­”

“Do you?  Why?” she said with her puzzled frown.

“I suppose it’s because I’m what you called, in your letter, a student of life.  I like to understand things—­and people.  Particularly do I like to understand women.  But one finds it impossible to take them seriously, as a rule.”

“I don’t know many women—­” she began.

“And how many men did you say?  Two?” he said, smiling.  She shook her head.

“I’m afraid I take everyone rather seriously.”

“It’s a mistake,” he said.  “I used to.  But they disappoint one.  When I stopped taking people, women especially, seriously, and made love to them, I found them quite adorable—­”

“It seems silly.”

“It’s quite a delightful pastime.”

They had gone out on the verandah again now, and she looked across at the lake that glimmered red in the fire-glow.

“You didn’t seem to think women a pastime in those lectures of yours three years ago.  You said then that they were man’s heel of Achilles.  You seemed rather in a panic about them—­”

He nodded his head and, meeting her intent eyes, decided that she had to be taken seriously.  He was just going to speak when she went on: 

“But you’ve got past that now—­the panic stage, the pastime stage, the cynical stage—­”

“I suppose you’re thinking of those last Edinburgh lectures?  They’re the furthest I have got yet.  I believe they are a very clever piece of work, a sort of high-water mark.  But there are so many pulls to jerk us back from the high-water mark, don’t you think?  And as Louis—­wasn’t it?—­said, we most of us think better than we do—­”

They had reached the haze of the ballroom by this time.  People sitting on the flour-bags sent up white auras which mingled with the dust and the smoke of strong pipes to make an effective screen.  Kraill looked astonished.  Marcella smiled.

“They say Englishmen take their pleasures sadly,” he whispered confidentially.  “I don’t think they could say the same for Colonials.”

“They work so hard, and they like to let off steam sometimes,” she said.  “By the way, I must simply say you are a friend from England.  If I say you are someone very wise they’ll either be rude to you or frightened of you.  And all the girls will want to dance with you if I say you’re from London.  They’re mad on dancing, and they’ll take it for granted that you are.  They’ll expect you to teach them all the new things.”