"I used to like a great many things which bore me now."

"Yes, you used to like me," he retorted gaily.

She had so confidently expected the remark, had left so frank an opening
for it, that while she watched him from beneath languid eyelids a little
cynical quiver disturbed her lips. The game was as old as the Garden of
Eden, she had played it well or ill from her cradle, and at last she had
begun to grow a trifle weary. She had found the wisdom which is hidden
at the core of all Dead Sea fruit, and the bitter taste of it was still
in her mouth. The world for her was a world of make-believe--of lies so
futile that their pretty embroidered shams barely covered the ugly
truths beneath, and, though she had pinned her faith upon falsehood and
had made her sacrifice to the little gods, there were moments still when
the undelivered soul within her awoke and stirred as a child stirs in
the womb. Even as she went back to the game anew, she was conscious that
it would be a battle of meaningless words, of shallow insincerities--yet
she went back, nevertheless, before the disgust the thought awoke had
passed entirely from among her sensations.

"I believe I did," she confessed with a charming shrug.

"But you turned against me in the end--women always do," he lamented
merrily, as he flicked away the ashes of his cigarette. Then, with a
perceptible start of recollection, he paused a moment and leaned forward
to look at her more closely. "By the way, I had a shot at your friend
to-day," he said, "the lady who looks like an old picture and does
verse. Why on earth did she take to poetry?" he demanded impatiently.
"I hate it--it's all sheer insanity."