She smiled again most cheerfully.

“Don’t bother, Mr. Canby.  We’re well met.  I’m not fond of meaningless personalities—­or the authors of them.”

She really was a proper sort of a person.  Her conversation had no frills or fal-lals, and she wasn’t afraid to say what she thought.  Presently we began speaking the same language.  We talked of the country, the wonderful weather and of Jerry, to whom it seemed she had taken a fancy.

“You’ve created something, Mr. Canby—­a rare thing in this age—­” she looked off into the distance, her eyes narrowing slightly.  “But he can’t remain as he is.”

“Why not?” I asked quickly.  “Knowledge of evil isn’t impurity.”

“It will permeate him.”

“No.  He will repel it.”

She smiled knowingly.

“Impossible.  Society is rotten.  It will tolerate him, then resent him, and finally,” she made a wide gesture, “engulf!”

“I’m not afraid,” I said staunchly.

“You should be.  He’s in danger—­” She stopped suddenly.  “I mean—­” She paused again, and then said evenly, “It seems a pity to me, that’s all.”

“What’s a pity?”

“That all your teaching must end in failure.”

“H-m!  You haven’t a very high opinion of your fellows.”

“No, men are weak.”

“Jerry isn’t weak.”

“He’s human—­too human.”

“One can be human and still be a philosopher—­”

“No.”

“But he knows the good from the bad.”

“Oh, does he?  And if the bad is masquerading?  It is always.  You think he would recognize it?”

She was speaking in riddles, and yet it seemed to me with a purpose.

“What do you mean, Miss Gore?”

“Merely that such innocence as his is dangerous.”

It was an unusual sort of a conversation to be engaged in with a woman I had known but twenty minutes.  I think she felt it, too.  There was some restraint in her manner, but I realized that her interest in Jerry was driving her, if against her better judgment, with a definite design that would not balk at trifles.

“You seem to know a great deal about Jerry,” I said at last.  “Who has told you?”

“My eyes are tolerably good, Mr. Canby, my ears excellent.”

I would have questioned further, but Jerry and the Van Wyck girl at this moment came out on the terrace.  Jerry was laughing.

“Caught in the act,” he cried, as they came down to join us.  “There’s hope for you yet, Roger.”

Marcia came and thrust her arm through Miss Gore’s.  “Isn’t it wonderful to be the first woman in the Garden of Paradise?”

Miss Gore nodded carelessly.

The girl was so radiant in her air of possession that I couldn’t help speaking.

“But you’re not,” I said.

Marcia’s narrow eyes regarded me coolly and then looked at Jerry inquiringly, and when she spoke her voice was almost too sweet.