"One has found that true ... But you are young to know it, Athenais."
"A woman is never young--after a certain age--save when she loves, my friend."
"That, too, is true. But still you are overyoung to have learned it."
"One learns life's lessons not in any fixed and predetermined order, Paul, with no sort of sequence whatever, but as and when Life chooses to teach them."
"Quel dommage!" Lanyard murmured, and subsided into another silence.
The girl grew restive. "But tell me, my dear Don Juan," she protested: "Do all your conquests affect you in this morbid fashion?"
"Conquests?"
"You seemed to get on very well with Liane Delorme."
"Pardon. If I am sentimental, it is because old memories have been awakened to-night, memories of forfeit days when one thought well of oneself, here in Paris."
"Days in which, no doubt, Liane played a part?"