"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully.

"I don't know, Clive. Some day--when you feel like it--if you will

come to me--"

"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful--wonderfully good--"

"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to

laziness--and even to dissipation--"

"You!"

"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I

smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I

won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And

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really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd

be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure

loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely

revealed.

"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore

cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave."

She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very

nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me,

Clive."

But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes--eyes haunted

by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's

young womanhood--all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on

that day he married another woman.

"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern.

He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except--you are very--wonderful--to

me."




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