He said aloud, “to think of these trees being turned into newspapers!”

He looked up at her whimsically.

“The least I can do is to help grow them again.  As a phosphate I might amount to something—­if I’m carefully spaded in.”  And in a lower voice just escaping mockery:  “How are you, Virginia?”

“I am perfectly well.”

“Are you well enough to sit down and talk to me for half an hour?”

She made no reply.

“Don’t be dignified; there is nothing more inartistic, except a woman who is trying to be brave on an inadequate income.”

She did not move or look at him.

“Virginia—­dear?”

“What?”

“Do you remember that day we met in the surf; and you said something insolent to me, and bent over, laying your palms flat on the water, looking at me over your shoulder?”

“Yes.”

“You knew what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“This is part of the consequences.  That’s what life is, nothing but a game of consequences.  I knew what I was doing; you admit you were responsible for yourself; and nothing but consequences have resulted ever since.  Sit down and be reasonable and friendly; won’t you?”

“I cannot stay here.”

“Try,” he said, smiling, and made room for her on the sun-crisped moss.  A little later she seated herself with an absent-minded air and gazed out across the valley.  A leaf or two, prematurely yellow, drifted from the birches.

“It reminds me,” he said thoughtfully, “of that exquisite poem on Autumn: 

    “’The autumn leaves are falling,
    They’re falling everywhere;
    They’re falling in the atmosphere,
    They’re falling in the air—­’

—­and I don’t remember any more, dear.”

“Did you wish to say anything to me besides nonsense?” she asked, flushing.

“Did you expect anything else from me?”

“I had no reason to.”

“Oh; I thought you might have been prepared for a little wickedness.”

She turned her eyes, more green than blue, on him.

“I was not unprepared.”

“Nor I,” he said gaily; “don’t let’s disappoint each other.  You know our theory is that the old families are decadent; and I think we ought to try to prove any theory we advance—­in the interests of psychology.  Don’t you?”

“I think we have proved it.”

He laughed, and passing his arm around her drew her head so that it rested against his face.

“That is particularly dishonourable,” she said in an odd voice.

“Because I’m married?”

“Yes; and because I know it.”

“That’s true; you didn’t know it when we were at Palm Beach.  That was tamer than this.  I think now we can very easily prove our theory.”  And he kissed her, still laughing.  But when he did it again, she turned her face against his shoulder.

“Courage,” he said; “we ought to be able to prove this theory of ours—­you and I together—­”