“My!  What a pity!” she exclaimed.  “Isn’t he happy?”

“Oh, yes, I think so.  Still, you know, most fellows have to sacrifice something when they marry.  He was a war-correspondent.  But he has spoilt himself for that.”

“I see.”  Mab was prodding the shingle with the end of her sunshade, her face very thoughtful.  Suddenly she looked up.  “Never get married, Big Bear!” she said vehemently.  “It’s the most miserable state in Christendom.”

“Anyone would think you spoke from experience,” said Merefleet, smiling a little.

But Mab did not smile.

“I know a lot, Big Bear,” she said, with a sharp sigh.

Merefleet was silent.  His thoughts had gone back to the previous night.  He was surprised when she suddenly alluded to the episode.

“There’s that man Ralph Warrender,” she said.  “I guess the woman that’s married him thinks he’s A1 and gilt-edged now, poor soul.  But he’s just a miserable patchwork mummy really, and there isn’t any white in him—­no, not a speck.”

She spoke with such intense, even violent bitterness that Merefleet was utterly astonished.  He stood gravely contemplating her flushed, upturned face.

“What has he done to make you say that, I wonder?” he said.

“Nothing to me,” she answered quickly.  “Nothing at all to me.  But I used to know his first wife.  She was a sort of friend of mine.  They used to call her the loveliest woman in U.S., Mr. Merefleet.  And she belonged to that fiend.”

They began to walk towards the boats through the shifting shingle.  Merefleet had nothing to say.  There was something in her passionate speech that disturbed him vaguely.  She spoke as one whose most sacred personal interests had once been at stake.

“Lucky for her she’s dead, Big Bear,” she said presently, with a side-glance at him.  “I’ve never regretted any of my friends less than Mrs. Ralph Warrender.  Oh, she was real miserable.  I’ve seen her with diamonds piled high in her hair and her face all shining with smiles.  And I’ve known all the time that her heart was broken.  And when I heard that she was dead, do you know, I was glad—­yes, thankful.  And I guess Warrender wasn’t sorry.  For she hated him.”

“I never cared for Warrender,” said Merefleet.  “But I always took him for a gentleman.”

She laughed at his words with a gaiety that jarred upon him.  “Do you know, Big Bear,” she said, “I think they must have forgotten to teach you your ABC when you went to school?  You’re such an innocent.”

Merefleet tramped by her side in silence.  There was something in him that shrank when she spoke in this vein.

But quite suddenly her tone changed.  She spoke very gently.  “Still, it’s better to know too little than too much,” she said.  “And oh, Big Bear, I know such a lot.”

Merefleet looked at her sharply and surprised an expression on her face which he did not easily forget.