After such a reproach there remained nothing else but to ask her forgiveness; and presently, harmony being restored, Laura began to talk about herself.  I had another instance of her cleverness.  Generally the women I have known intimately showed a desire to tell me their life.  I do not blame them for it; it shows that they feel the need to justify themselves in their own eyes and ours.  We men do not.  Yet I never met a woman either so clever as not to overstep the artistic proportions in her confession, or so sincere as not to tell lies in order to justify herself.  I call to witness all men who when the occasion occurs may verify how wonderfully similar all these cases of going astray are, and consequently how tedious.  Laura, too, began to talk about herself with a certain eager satisfaction, but only in this respect did she follow the beaten track of other fallen angels.  In what she told me there was a certain posing for originality, but she was certainly not posing as a victim.  Knowing she had to deal with a sceptic, she did not want to call forth a smile of incredulity.  Her sincerity was skirting upon the bold, almost the cynical, one might say, were it not that to her it is a system of life in which aestheticism has taken the place of ethics.  She prefers simply a life in the shape of an Apollo to that of humpbacked Pulcinello; that is her philosophy.  She had married Davis not so much for his wealth as for the purpose of making her life as beautiful as lay in human power,—­beautiful not in the common meaning of the word, but in the highest artistic sense.  Besides she did not consider she had any duties toward her husband, as she had never even pretended to love him; she had for him as much pity as repugnance, and as he was indifferent to everything, he was of no more account than if he were dead.  She added that she did not take account of anything that was contrary to her ideas of a purely beautiful and artistic life.  Regard for society she had very little, and who thought otherwise of her would be utterly wrong.  She had felt friendship for my father, not because of his social position, but because she had looked upon him as a masterwork of nature.  As to myself, she had loved me for a long time.  She understood perfectly that I would have prized her more had the victory been less easy, but she did not care to bargain when her happiness was at stake.

This kind of principles, announced by that perfect mouth in a soft voice full of metallic vibrations, gave me a strange sensation.  While speaking to me she drew her draperies close to her as if to make room for me at her side.  At times her eyes followed the motions of the sea-gulls circling above our heads, then again they rested keenly upon my face as if she wanted to read the impression her words had made upon me.  I listened to her words with a certain satisfaction, as they proved to me that I had judged her pretty correctly.  Yet there was something in them quite