"I beg your pardon," he apologized. "You do justify yours."

"How?"

"You decorate the world. I was wrong. That is the true function of a
beautiful woman, and you fulfill it."

"I have in my bag," replied Zora slowly, and looking at him steady-eyed, "a
preventive against sea-sickness; I have a waterproof to shelter me from
rain; but what can I do to shield myself against silly compliments?"

"Adopt the costume of the ladies of the Orient," said the Literary Man from
London, unabashed.

She laughed, although she detested him. He bent forward with humorous
earnestness. He had written some novels, and now edited a weekly of
precious tendencies and cynical flavor.

"I am a battered old man of thirty-five," said he, "and I know what I am
talking about. If you think you are going to wander at a loose end about
Europe without men paying you compliments and falling in love with you and
making themselves generally delightful, you're traveling under a grievous
hallucination."

"What you say," retorted Zora, "confirms me in my opinion that men are an
abominable nuisance. Why can't they let a poor woman go about in peace?"

The train happened to be waiting at Clapham Junction. A spruce young man,
passing by on the platform, made a perceptible pause by the window, his