“It doesn’t seem to me very feminine.”

“No?  But women generally like to’ take risks and chances.  In countries where lotteries are established they always buy tickets.”

“Ah! then they only risk what they have.  I think women are more prudent and conservative than men.”

“No doubt.  They are conservatives usually.  But when they do go in for radical measures and risks, they leave us quite behind.”  Mr. Henderson did not care to extend the conversation in this direction, and he asked, abruptly, “Are you finding New York agreeable, Miss Debree?”

“Yes.  Yes and no.  One has no time to one’s self.  Do you understand why it is, Mr. Henderson, that one can enjoy the whole day and then be thoroughly dissatisfied with it?”

“Perfectly; when the excitement is over.”

“And then I don’t seem to be myself here.  I have a feeling of having lost myself.”

“Because the world is so big?”

“Not that.  Do you know, the world seems much smaller here than at home.”

“And the city appears narrow and provincial?”

“I cannot quite explain it.  The interests of life don’t seem so large —­the questions, I mean, what is going on in Europe, the literature, the reforms, the politics.  I get a wider view when I stand off—­at home.  I suppose it is more concentrated here.  And, oh dear, I’m so stupid!  Everybody is so alert in little things, so quick to turn a compliment, and say a bright thing.  While I am getting ready to say what I really think about Browning, for instance, he is disposed of in a sentence.”

“That is because you try to say what you really think.”

“If one don’t, what’s the use of talk?”

“Oh, to pass the time.”

Margaret looked up to see if Henderson was serious.  There was a smile of amusement on his face, but not at all offensive, because the woman saw that it was a look of interest also.

“Then I sha’n’t be serious any more,” she said, as there was a movement to quit the table.

“That lays the responsibility on me of being serious,” he replied, in the same light tone.

Later they were wandering through the picture-gallery together.  A gallery of modern pictures appeals for the most part to the senses—­represents the pomps, the color, the allurements of life.  It struck Henderson forcibly that this gallery, which he knew well, appeared very different looking at it with Miss Debree from what it would if he had been looking at it with Miss Eschelle.  There were some pictures that he hurried past, some technical excellences only used for sensuous effects—­that he did not call attention to as he might have done with another.  Curiously enough, he found himself seeking sentiment, purity.  If the drawing was bad, Margaret knew it; if a false note was struck, she saw it.  But she was not educated up to a good many of the suggestions of the gallery.  Henderson perceived this, and his manner to her became