“Oh, yes—­the irony of formality.”

She nodded.  “Good night, then, Mr. Hamil.  If circumstances permitted it would have been delightful—­this putting off the cloak of convention and donning motley for a little unconventional misbehaviour with you....  But as it is, it worries me—­slightly—­as much as the episode and your opinion are worth.”

“I am wondering,” he said, “why this little tincture of bitterness flavours what you say to me?”

“Because I’ve misbehaved; and so have you.  Anyway, now that it’s done, there’s scarcely anything I could do to make the situation more flagrant or less flippant—­”

“You don’t really think—­”

“Certainly.  After all is said and done, we don’t know each other; here we are, shamelessly sauntering side by side under the jasmine, Paul-and-Virginia-like, exchanging subtleties blindfolded.  You are you; I am I; formally, millions of miles apart—­temporarily and informally close together, paralleling each other’s course through life for the span of half an hour—­here under the Southern stars....  O Ulysses, truly that island was inhabited by one, Calypso; but your thrall is to be briefer than your prototype’s.  See, now; here is the road; and I release you to that not impossible she—­”

“There is none—­”

“There will be.  You are very young.  Good-bye.”

“The confusing part of it to me,” he said, smiling, “is to see you so—­so physically youthful with even a hint of almost childish immaturity!—­and then to hear you as you are—­witty, experienced, nicely cynical, maturely sure of yourself and—­”

“You think me experienced?”

“Yes.”

“Sure of myself?”

“Of course; with your cool, amused poise, your absolute self-possession—­and the half-disdainful sword-play of your wit—­at my expense—­”

She halted beside the sea-wall, adorably mocking in her exaggerated gravity.

“At your expense?” she repeated.  “Why not?  You have cost me something.”

“You said—­”

“I know what I said:  I said that we might become friends.  But even so, you have already cost me something.  Tell me”—­he began to listen for this little trick of speech—­“how many men do you know who would not misunderstand what I have done this evening?  And—­do you understand it, Mr. Hamil?”

“I think—­”

“If you do you are cleverer than I,” she said almost listlessly, moving on again under the royal palms.

“Do you mean that—­”

“Yes; that I myself don’t entirely understand it.  Here, under this Southern sun, we of the North are in danger of acquiring a sort of insouciant directness almost primitive.  There comes, after a while, a certain mental as well as physical luxury in relaxation of rule and precept, permitting us a simplicity which sometimes, I think, becomes something less harmless.  There is luxury in letting