shouted wildly.  Again, the silence, the solitude and dimness of the forest, their intimate seclusion there, the great trees, the sky, the bright green cushion of moss, the few detached sounds,—­bird-notes, rustling leaves, snapping twigs,—­by which the silence was intensified; again all these lent an acuteness to his sensations.  Her dark eyes were smiling lustrously, languidly, at the smoke curling in the air before her, as if they saw a vision in it.

‘You’re adorable at moments,’ he said at last.

‘At moments!  Thank you.’  She laughed.

’Oh, you can’t expect me to pretend that I find you adorable always.  There are times when I could fall upon you and exterminate you.’

‘Why?’

‘When you passed me yesterday with a nod.’

‘Twas your own fault.  You didn’t look amusing yesterday.’

’When you baffle my perfectly innocent desire to know whom I have the honour of addressing.’

‘Shall I summon Bezigue?’ she asked, touching her bunch of charms.

He acted his despair.

‘Besides, what does it matter?  I know who you are,’ she went on.  ‘Let that console you.’

‘Did I say you were adorable?  You’re hateful.’

’What’s in a name?  Nothing but the power to compromise.  Would you have me compromise myself more than I’ve done already?  A woman who makes a man’s acquaintance without an introduction, and talks about love, and smokes cigarettes, with him!’ She gave a little shudder.  ’How horrible it sounds when you state it baldly.’

’One must never state things baldly.  One must qualify.  It’s the difference between Truth and mere Fact.  Truth is Fact qualified.  You must add that the woman knew the man by common report to be of the highest possible respectability, and that she saw for herself he was (alas!) altogether harmless.  And then you must explain that the affair took place in the country, in the spring; and that the cigarettes were the properest conceivable sort of cigarettes, having been rolled by hand in England.’

’You wouldn’t believe me if I said I had never done such a thing before?  They all say that, don’t they?’

‘Yes, they all say that.  But, oddly enough, I do believe you.’

‘Then you’re not entirely lost to grace, not thoroughly a cynic.’

‘Oh, there are some good women.’

‘And some good men?’

‘Possibly.  I’ve never happened to meet one.’

‘The eye of the beholder!’

’If you like.  But I don’t know.  There are such things, no doubt, as cynics by temperament; congenital cynics.  Then, indeed, you may cry:  The eye of the beholder.  But others become cynics, are driven into cynicism, by sad experience.  I started in life with the rosiest faith in my fellow-man.  If I’ve lost it, it’s because he’s always behaved shabbily to me, soon or late; always taking some advantage.  The struggle for existence!  We’re all beasts, who take part in it; we must be, or we’re devoured.  Women for the most part are out of it.  Anyhow, plus je vois les hommes, plus j’aime les femmes.’