She was very lovely, moreover; lying back there among her laces and Indian shawls, with the sunset in the brown depths of her eyes and on her delicate cheek.

And Bertie, as he looked on his liege lady, really had a glow of the old, real, foolish, forgotten feeling stir at his heart, as he gazed on her in the half-light, and thought, almost wistfully, "If the Jews were down on me to-morrow, would she really care, I wonder ?" Really care?
Bertie knew his world and its women too well to deceive himself in his heart about the answer.

Nevertheless, he asked the question.

"Would you care much, chere belle ?" "Care what ?" "If I came to grief--went to the bad, you know; dropped out of the world altogether ?" She raised her splendid eyes in amaze, with a delicate shudder through all her laces.

"Bertie! You would break my heart! What can you dream of ?" "Oh, lots of us end so! How is a man to end ?" answered Bertie philosophically, while his thoughts still ran off in a speculative skepticism.