This little story had taken some time in the telling, so that the two
young men had now reached their hotel.

"Ah, my dear Gordon," said Bernard, "we speak a different language. If
you don't want to be fascinated, what is one to say to you? 'Object to
being fascinated!' There 's a man easy to satisfy! Raffine, va!"

"Well, see here now," said Gordon, stopping in the door-way of the inn;
"when it comes to the point, do you like it yourself?"

"When it comes to the point?" Bernard exclaimed. "I assure you I don't
wait till then. I like the beginning--I delight in the approach of it--I
revel in the prospect."

"That's just what I did. But now that the thing has come--I don't revel.
To be fascinated is to be mystified. Damn it, I like my liberty--I like
my judgment!"

"So do I--like yours," said Bernard, laughing, as they took their
bedroom candles.






CHAPTER IX

Bernard talked of this matter rather theoretically, inasmuch as to
his own sense, he was in a state neither of incipient nor of absorbed