There was nobody in the terrace except Bunbury Gray in a brilliant waistcoat, who sat smoking a very large faience pipe and reading a sporting magazine.  He got up with alacrity when he saw her, fetched her a big wicker chair, evidently inclined to let her divert him.

“Oh, I’m not going to,” she observed, sinking into the cushions.  For a moment she felt rather limp, then a quiver passed through her, tightening the relaxed nerves.

“Bunbury,” she said, “do you know any men who ever get tired of idleness and clothes and their neighbours’ wives?”

“Sure,” he said, surprised, “I get tired of those things all right.  I’ve got enough of this tailor, for example,” looking at his trousers.  “I’m tired of idleness, too.  Shall we do something and forget the cut of my clothes?”

“What do you do when you tire of people and things?”

“Change partners or go away.  That’s easy.”

“You can’t change yourself—­or go away from yourself.”

“But I don’t get tired of myself,” he explained in astonishment.  She regarded him curiously from the depths of her wicker chair.

“Bunbury, do you remember when we were engaged?”

He grinned.  “Rather.  I wouldn’t mind being it again.”

“Engaged?”

“Sure thing.  Will you take me on again, Geraldine?”

“I thought you cared for Sylvia Quest.”

“I do, but I can stop it.”

She still regarded him with brown-eyed curiosity.

“Didn’t you really tire of our engagement?”

“You did.  You said that my tailor is the vital part of me.”

She laughed.  “Well, you are only a carefully groomed combination of New York good form and good nature, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.  That’s rather rough, isn’t it?  Or do you really mean it that way?”

“No, Bunny dear.  I only mean that you’re like the others.  All the men I know are about the same sort.  You all wear too many ties and waistcoats; you are, and say, and do too many kinds of fashionable things.  You play too much tennis, drink too many pegs, gamble too much, ride and drive too much.  You all have too much and too many—­if you understand that!  You ask too much and you give too little; you say too much which means too little.  Is there none among you who knows something that amounts to something, and how to say it and do it?”

“What the deuce are you driving at, Geraldine?” he asked, bewildered.

“I’m just tired and irritable, Bunny, and I’m taking it out on you....  Because you were always kind—­and even when foolish you were often considerate....  That’s a new waistcoat, isn’t it?”

“Well—­I don’t—­know,” he began, perplexed and suspicious, but she cut him short with a light little laugh and reached out to pat his hand.

“Don’t mind me.  You know I like you....  I’m only bored with your species.  What do you do when you don’t know what to do, Bunny?”