She retorted: "Whose life is the more artificial, yours or mine?
It is true that we are both imperfectly clothed," she added, glancing at a photograph of herself in a short skirt, "and not always in our right mind--but you've caught nothing but a cold! Nevertheless, I love you and you love me." Then he begged her to go with him to the South Seas and take the place of Father Damien among the colony of lepers.

"It is a beautiful place, and inexpensive, for we shall live only a few weeks.

What do you say, dearest?
You know," he added, with a faint, sad smile, glancing at another photograph of her,--executing the high kick,--"you're quite a leaper yourself." But that night she received an offer of a new engagement.

She wrote to John Gale: "The South Seas is rather an expensive trip to take simply to die.

Couldn't we do it as cheaply at home?
Or couldn't you prevail on your Father Superior to set up his monastery there?
I'm afraid I'm not up to it.