A pink carnation was in a glass in front of him, already withering from the heat.

He touched the faded tips of the petals.

'That is the colour which conies from thinking.' Clarice lifted her shoulders with more of sadness than impatience in the gesture.

'You believe,' she said, 'no woman at all has a right to dare to think.' 'I notice,' he answered with the same levity, 'that the woman who thinks generally thinks of what she ought not to.' Later, in the drawing-room, he looked for her again, and looked unsuccessfully.

The window, however, was open, and he advanced to it.