him that she had no intention of ignoring memories which to him were
charged with the most subtle pain.

He looked down the table, and back again into her face.

"You are quite right," he said. "This is different. We cannot compare. We
can judge only by effect--the effect upon ourselves."

"Can you be analytical and yet remain within the orbit of my
understanding?" she asked, with a faint smile. "If so, I should like to
know exactly how you feel about it all."

He passed a course with a somewhat weary gesture of refusal, and leaned
back in his chair.

"You are comprehensive--as usual," he remarked. "Just then I was
wondering whether the perfume of these banks of hot-house flowers--I
don't know what they are--was as sweet as the odour of the salt from
the creeks, or my roses when the night wind touched them."

"You were wondering! And what have you decided?"

"Ah, I must not say. In any case you would not agree with me. Wasn't it
you who once scoffed at my idyll in the wilderness?"

"I do not think that I believe in idylls, nowadays," she answered. "One
risks so many disappointments when one believes in anything."

He raised his eyebrows.