“I think this is the better,” she said frankly; “it is very pleasant and very exciting. And all the good people I have met have been very dull. I think that is because all good people are dull.”
“There are some good people,” said the Colonel virtuously, “who are very interesting.”
“Not because of their goodness,” rejoined the girl quickly; “if you meet a very popular good man it is because there is something about him which is not absolutely good. If you hear a man speak of a parson as a good fellow you will generally discover that he goes to the National Sporting Club and sees boxing or rides to hounds or does something which is quite unassociated with his professional duties or the exercise of his innocent qualities. But you have not answered me. Which is better?”
“If I had my life to live over again—” began the Colonel with a wry face.
“That’s silly,” said the girl calmly. “You won’t have your life to live over again, so why speculate upon the possibility? Anyway, if you could live your life over again, you could not possibly benefit by your present experience, because you would not remember it. You have lived two lives, which is the better?”
“You are in a queer mood, tonight,” said Colonel Westhanger, rising and stalking past her to the fireplace. “Have you got religion, or something?”
“Which is the better?” she asked again. “To be a free thief or to be in the dull bondage of honesty?”
“For your peace of mind the honest life is the better,” said the Colonel. “You have no sleepless nights, no agony of mind which you have to conceal with whatever skill you possess at every knock at the door, no fear of the police, no wondering what the next day is going to bring forth.”
“Really!” she looked up at him quizzically. “Do honest men never have any of those experiences? Do honest men get into debt, for example, and dread the coming of the collector? Does an honest man who is getting grey feel a little sickening sensation in his heart every time his employer looks at him thoughtfully?”
The Colonel turned round and snarled over his shoulder.
“As you seem to have all your answers ready-made, I don’t know why you trouble to ask me,” he snapped; “there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the picture.”
The girl was in a restless mood and presently she sprang up, walked to the window, opened the little square of shutter and looked out into the darkening street. Then she crossed to her little desk at one side of the fireplace. She sat down and wrote for a while, then, as suddenly, she dropped her pen and got up again.
“You are going to ask another question,” warned the Colonel.
“Only one,” she pleaded.
“Well, fire away,” he grumbled ungraciously.
“What would induce you to forsake your career and apply your undoubted talents, as the assize judge said to poor dear Mr. Mulberry, to better purpose?”
“Wealth,” said the Colonel promptly—“enough stuff put aside to bring me in a nice little income. And here again, let me say, Kate, that you and I could well afford to knock off—”
She interrupted him.
“That is a purely material inducement,” she said. “What other—spiritual or ethical?”
“Oh, rot!” he snapped. “Why do you ask these fool questions?”
“Because I am wondering,” she said, “what influence could be brought to bear upon me. The opinion of my fellow creatures? No, I don’t care what they think. I know they are mostly fools and so why should they influence me? Wealth? No, if I were rich as Croesus I should go on, for the sport of it. Punishment? No, I should use my spare time in correcting the faults in me which had resulted in my detection. I am afraid I am incorrigible, uncle, for there is something about this life which appeals to me no end—and now I am going to dress,” she said, making for the door.
“Going out?” asked the Colonel in surprise.
She nodded.
“But Gregori—”
“Gregori can wait,” said Kate, “and Gregori bores me. He is always trying to make love.”
“Is that remarkable?” suggested the Colonel archly.
“It is remarkably annoying,” said the girl. She flung open the door and stepped back. Gregori, politest of cavaliers, stood deferentially in the entrance and she surveyed him coolly.
“Were you listening?” she asked.
“Señorita!” he said, shocked.
She laughed and passed out. Gregori watched her as she mounted the stairs till she turned out of sight, then he closed the door and came across to the Colonel.
“Our little friend is hard on me,” he said with no hint of malice in his voice.
“She is a queer girl, Gregori,” replied the Colonel, shaking his head.
“She is a queer girl,” repeated Gregori; “queer indeed, yes.”
He stroked his little black moustache.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Who does she like?” snapped the older man.
“You, I trust,” smiled the Spaniard.
The Colonel tossed his head despairingly.
“I hardly know,” he said. “What a reversal of positions!”
The Spaniard took the seat the girl had vacated.
“I know what you are thinking about,” he nodded; “a few years ago she was the obedient child absorbing our code—today she is the tyrannical mistress of the situation.”
He deftly unrolled and rolled a Spanish cigarette, licked its edges and fumbled for a match in his waistcoat pocket.
“She is all brain, our Kate,” he said admiringly, “but her heart—pouf!” he puffed out a cloud of smoke to emphasize the word.
“There is no end to her energy,” he went on; “sometimes I think she is dangerous and then when I come to consider all things it is impossible to say that she can be. After all, hers is only the plan. The responsibility for the bungling is with us—the plan is so perfect that you can hardly pick a hole in it. She works out to the last minute detail the chronology of a coup, she dresses it, rehearses it. She never fails. Yes, it was Rahboulla,” he agreed, “and I was wrong to kick. What was
