steadily at her. He was anxious to watch the effect of what he was going to say.

“You have mentioned my review upon your novel in the Bi-Weekly. I cannot say that I am sorry I wrote it. I never attacked a book with so much pleasure. But I am very sorry indeed that you should have written it. With your gifts you could have given to the world something better than a mere psychological debauch!”

She laughed softly, but genuinely.

“I adore sincerity,” she exclaimed, “and it is so many years since I was actually scolded. A ‘psychological debauch’ is delightful. But I cannot help my views, can I? My experiences were made for me! I became the creature of circumstances. No one is morally responsible for their opinions.”

“There are things,” he said, “which find their way into our thoughts and consciousness, but of which it would be considered flagrantly bad taste to speak. And there are things in the world which exist, which have existed from time immemorial, the evil legacy of countless generations, of which it seems to me to be equally bad taste to write. Art has a limitless choice of subjects. I would not have you sully your fine gifts by writing of anything save of the beautiful.”

“This is rank hedonism,” she laughed. “It is a survival of your academic days.”

“Some day,” he answered, “we will talk more fully of this. It is a little early for us to discuss a subject upon which we hold such opposite views.”

“You are afraid that we might quarrel!”

He shook his head.

“No, not that! Only as I am something of an idealist, and you, I suppose, have placed yourself amongst the ranks of the realists, we should scarcely meet upon a common basis. But will you forgive me if I say so—I am very sure that some day you will be a deserter?”

“And why?”