not with a uniform and glory." She was talking flippantly, for they
made a pretence now of alluding lightly to his years in France--he had
gone into the war before his country--and to the nervous malady, the
disabled will, he had brought back. "What you need is not to win more
esteem, but to lose some that you've got. Your salvation lies in the
opposite direction from where flags are waving. If you could only
deliberately arrange to do something that would lower your reputation in
the eyes of gouty old gentlemen or mothers with marriageable daughters!
If you could manage to get your nose broken, or elope with a chorus
girl, or commit an unromantic murder, I should begin to have hopes of
you."

"I may do something as bad some day and surprise you."

"It would surprise me. But I'm not sure, after all, that I don't like
you better as you are, with your fine air of superiority. It makes one
believe, somehow, in human perfectibility. Now, I can never believe in
that when I realize how I feel about Rose Stribling. There is nothing
perfectible in such emotions."

"Rose Stribling! Beside you she is like a pumpkin in the basket with a
pomegranate!"

Corinna laughed with frank pleasure. "There are a million who would
prefer the pumpkin to the pomegranate," she answered. "Rose Stribling,
you must admit, is the type that has been the desire of the world since
Venus first rose from the foam."

"Can you imagine Mrs. Stribling rising from foam?" Stephen retorted
impertinently.