"Is it morality?" she rejoined sweetly, "I thought it was experience."
"Well, any way, you're right and I'm moral," he remarked, "the joy of living, after all, is not in having a thing, but in wanting it."
"Which proves, as I have said," she concluded, "that one love is as good as a thousand."
There was a sharp edge of ridicule to his glance; but the words he spoke were uttered from some mere impulse of audacity.
"I wonder if I taught you that?" he questioned.
Leaning slightly forward she clasped her large white hands upon her knees; and the position, while she kept it, showed plainly the rounded ample length of her figure.
"I might tell you the truth—but, after all, why should I?" she demanded.
An emotional curiosity which was almost as powerful as love flamed in his face. How much or how little did she feel? he wondered; and the vanity which was the inspiration of his largest as well as his smallest passion, dominated for the time all other impressions which she produced.
"Would it be possible for you to tell the truth if you tried?" he asked.
"I never try—all the harm on earth comes from women telling men the truth. It is the woman who tells the truth who becomes—a door mat. If I ever felt myself in danger of speaking the truth—" she hesitated for a quick breath, while her eyes drew his gaze as by a cord—"I would run away."