Milly thought, and it was perhaps the very truth
of his claim its not being negligible that sharp
ened her impatience and thereby her wit. You re
blase, but you re not enlightened. You re familiar
with everything, but conscious, really of nothing.
What I mean is that you ve no imagination."

Lord Mark, at this, threw back his head, ranging
with his eyes the opposite side of the room and
showing himself at last so much more completely
as diverted that it fairly attracted their hostess's no
tice. Mrs. Lowder, however, only smiled on Milly
for a sign that something racy was what she had
expected, and resumed, with a splash of her screw,
her cruise among the islands. " Oh, I ve heard
that," the young man replied, "before!"

"There it is then. You ve heard everything be
fore. You ve heard me of course before, in my
country, often enough."

"Oh, never too often," he protested; " I'm sure
I hope I shall still hear you again and again."

"But what good then has it done you? " the girl
went on as if now frankly to amuse him.

"Oh, you ll see when you know me."

"But, most assuredly, I shall never know you."

"Then that will be exactly," he laughed, " the
good!"

If it established thus that they couldn t, or
wouldn t, mix, why, none the less, did Milly feel,
through it, a perverse quickening of the relation to
which she had been, in spite of herself, appointed?

[[180]]

p179 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p180w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p181

v?