"I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; but, do
you know, I am not inclined to revels? There has been a little--just a
very little bit too much festivity so far. . . . Not that I don't adore
dinners and gossip and dances; not that I do not love to pervade bright
and glittering places. Oh, no. Only--I--"

She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn: "I sometimes feel a curious desire
for other things. I have been feeling it all day."

"What things?"

"I--don't know--exactly; substantial things. I'd like to learn about
things. My father was the head of the American School of Archæology in
Crete. My mother was his intellectual equal, I believe--"

Her voice had fallen as she spoke. "Do you wonder that physical pleasure
palls a little at times? I inherit something besides a capacity for
dancing."

He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally new.

"When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter. I saw the
excavations in Crete for the buried city which father discovered near
Præsos. We lived for a while with Professor Flanders in the Fayum
district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built nearly three thousand years
before the coming of Christ; I myself picked up a scarab as old as the
ruins! . . . Captain Selwyn--I was only a child of ten; I could
understand very little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never
forgotten the happiness of that winter! . . . And that is why, at times,