Why should a woman wear blue stockings because she had a blue gown, he wondered idly.

She was not like Beatrice, this alluring, beautiful woman, who lay there talking to him in a manner whose meaning came to him only in strange, bewildering flashes.

He could be with Beatrice and feel the truth of what he had once told her--that her sex was a thing which need not even be taken into account between them.

With this woman it was different; he felt that she wished it to be different.
"Perhaps you had better tell me about that matter of business next time I am here," he suggested, with an abruptness which was almost brusque.
"I must go now.

I do not know why I have stayed so long." She held out her fingers.
"You are a very sudden person," she declared, smiling at his discomfiture.