It was the first confession of what her real, her sane and intelligent self had been proclaiming loudly since the first flush of interest and pleasure in her "borrowed plumage" had receded.

"Why _do_ you let me make a fool of myself ?" "No use going into that," replied he, on guard not to take too seriously this belated penitence.

He was used to Del's fits of remorse, so used to them that he thought them less valuable than they really were, or might have been had he understood her better--or, not bothered about trying to understand her.

"I shan't be away long, I imagine," he went on, "and I'll have to rush round from England to France, to Germany, to Austria, to Switzerland.

All that would be exhausting for you, and only a little of the time pleasant." His words sounded to her like a tolling over the grave of that former friendship and comradeship of theirs.