“’The sea-gull
       And the eagul
     And the dipper-dapper-duck
       And the Jew-fish
       And the blue-fish
     And the turtle in the muck;
       And the squir’l
       And the girl
     And the flippy floppy bat
       Are differ-ent
       As gent from gent. 
     So let it go at that!’”

“What hideous nonsense,” she laughed, in open encouragement; but he could recall nothing more—­or pretended he couldn’t.

“You asked me,” he said, “whether I know Sudbury Gray.  I do, slightly.  What about him?” And he waited, remembering Nina’s suggestion as to that wealthy young man’s eligibility.

“He’s one of the nicest men I know,” she replied frankly.

“Yes, but you don’t know ‘Boots’ Lansing.”

“The gentleman who was bucked out of his footwear?  Is he attractive?”

“Rather.  Shrieks rent the air when ‘Boots’ left Manila.”

“Feminine shrieks?”

“Exclusively.  The men were glad enough.  He has three months’ leave this winter, so you’ll see him soon.”

She thanked him mockingly for the promise, watching him from amused eyes.  After a moment she said: 

“I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; but, do you know, I am not inclined to revels?  There has been a little—­just a very little bit too much festivity so far. . . .  Not that I don’t adore dinners and gossip and dances; not that I do not love to pervade bright and glittering places.  Oh, no.  Only—­I—­”

She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn:  “I sometimes feel a curious desire for other things.  I have been feeling it all day.”

“What things?”

“I—­don’t know—­exactly; substantial things.  I’d like to learn about things.  My father was the head of the American School of Archaeology in Crete.  My mother was his intellectual equal, I believe—­”

Her voice had fallen as she spoke.  “Do you wonder that physical pleasure palls a little at times?  I inherit something besides a capacity for dancing.”

He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally new.

“When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter.  I saw the excavations in Crete for the buried city which father discovered near Praesos.  We lived for a while with Professor Flanders in the Fayum district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built nearly three thousand years before the coming of Christ; I myself picked up a scarab as old as the ruins! . . .  Captain Selwyn—­I was only a child of ten; I could understand very little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never forgotten the happiness of that winter! . . .  And that is why, at times, pleasures tire me a little; and a little discontent creeps in.  It is ungrateful and ungracious of me to say so, but I did wish so much to go to college—­to have something to care for—­as mother cared for father’s work.  Why, do you know that my mother accidentally discovered the thirty-seventh sign in the Karian Signary?”