"Suspicion," he peered through the gloom at her reprovingly, "is the solvent which disintegrates happiness; and happiness, reduced to its component parts, is trash. Withdraw your question!"
"Happiness cannot be reduced to its component parts," she laughed, "because its ingredients have strayed to us from the four corners of the universe, and cannot ever be returned. I insist upon your answer!"
"You are drawing a long bow," he said more soberly. "You employ femininity's imperfect warrant to shoot at random and trust her gods to put something in the way of getting hit. It's a satire on honesty."
"Never mind about honesty," she laughed again. "Did my gods fail me?"
He puffed a few times at his cigarette, finally taking a deep inhalation and blowing it slowly on the lighted end until the outlines of his face became softly visible in the glow. She saw how serious it seemed, and guessed he was purposely making it so.
"Since you insist—!" he began very carefully. "My dryad in this enchanted wood is the most enticing spirit ever clothed in the graces of woman. That's all."
Again he turned to his cigarette. Again the red glow and the serious face. Again her accurate suspicion.
"If that is all, you're not playing fair. Does she live in a tree?"
"No. She lives in a big white house with big white columns; by night she haunts me, but by day she holds school for mortals in a shady grove."
"I thought you were more original than that," she said, in an expressionless voice. "So we're not to talk any more, are we!"