"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully.
"I don't know, Clive. Some day--when you feel like it--if you will
come to me--"
"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful--wonderfully good--"
"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to
laziness--and even to dissipation--"
"You!"
"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I
smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I
won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And
really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd
be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure
loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely
revealed.
"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore
cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave."
She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very
nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me,
Clive."
But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes--eyes haunted
by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's
young womanhood--all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on
that day he married another woman.
"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern.
He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except--you are very--wonderful--to
me."