Her hand still rested lightly on his arm as they walked forward. She was speaking at intervals almost as though talking in an undertone to herself:

"I'm in—perplexity. I've been troubled. Perhaps that is what makes me tolerant of you; perhaps that's why I'm glad to see you.... Trouble is a new thing to me. I thought I had troubles—perhaps I had as a child. But this is deeper, different, disquieting."

"Are you in love?" he asked.

"No."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Then what——"

"I can't tell you. Anyway, it won't last. It can't, ... Can it?"

She looked around at him, and they both laughed a little at her inconsequence.

"I feel better for pretending to tell you, anyway," she said, as they halted before high iron gates hung between two granite posts from which the woven wire fence of the game park, ten feet high, stretched away into the darkening woods on either hand.

"This is the Sachem's Gate," she said; "here is the key; unlock it, please."

Inside they crossed a stream dashing between tanks set with fern and tall silver birches.

"Hurryon Brook," she said. "Isn't it a beauty? It pours into the Gray Water a little farther ahead. We must hasten, or it will be too dark to see the trout."

Twice again they crossed the rushing brook on log bridges. Then through the trees stretching out before them they caught sight of the Gray Water, crinkling like a flattened sheet of hammered silver.

Everywhere the surface was starred and ringed and spattered by the jumping fish; and now they could hear them far out, splash! slap! clip-clap! splash!—hundreds and hundreds jumping incessantly, so that the surface of the water was constantly broken over the entire expanse.

Now and then some great trout, dark against the glimmer, leaped full length into the air; everywhere fish broke, swirled, or rolled over, showing "colour."

"There is Scott," she whispered, attuning her voice to the forest quiet—"out there in that canoe. No, he hasn't taken his rod; he seldom does; he's perfectly crazy over things of this sort. All day and half the night he's out prowling about the woods, not fishing, not shooting, just mousing around and listening and looking. And for all his dreadfully expensive collection of arms and rods, he uses them very little. See him out there drifting about with the fish breaking all around—some within a foot of his canoe! He'll never come in to dress for dinner unless we call him."

And she framed her mouth with both hands and sent a long, clear call floating out across the Gray Water.

"All right; I'll come!" shouted her brother. "Wait a moment!"

They waited many moments. Dusk, lurking in the forest, peered out, casting a gray net over shore and water. A star quivered, another, then ten, and scores and myriads.

They had found a seat on a fallen log; neither seemed to have very much to say. For a while the steady splashing of the fish sounded like the uninterrupted music of a distant woodland waterfall. Suddenly it ceased as if by magic. Not another trout rose; the quiet was absolute.

"Is not this stillness delicious?" she breathed.

"It is sweeter when you break it."

"Please don't say such things.... Can't you understand how much I want you to be sincere to me? Lately, I don't know why, I've seemed to feel so isolated. When you talk that way I feel more so. I—just want—a friend."

There was a silence; then he said lightly:

"I've felt that way myself. The more friends I make the more solitary I seem to be. Some people are fashioned for a self-imprisonment from which they can't break out, and through which no one can penetrate. But I never thought of you as one of those."

"I seem to be at times—not exactly isolated, but unable to get close to—to Kathleen, for example. Do you know, Duane, it might be very good for me to have you to talk to."

"People usually like to talk to me. I've noticed it. But the curious part of it is that they have nothing to give me in exchange for my attention."

"What do you mean?"

He laughed. "Oh, nothing. I amuse people; I know it. You—and everybody—say I am all cleverness and froth—not to be taken seriously. But did it ever occur to you that what you see in me you evoke. Shallowness provokes shallowness, levity, lightness, inconsequence—all are answered by their own echo.... And you and the others think it is I who answer."

He laughed, not looking at her:

"And it happens that you—and the others—are mistaken. If I appear to be what you say I am, it is merely a form of self-defence. Do you think I could endure the empty nonsense of a New York winter if I did not present to it a surface like a sounding-board and let Folly converse with its own echo—while, behind it, underneath it, Duane Mallett goes about his own business."

Astonished, not clearly understanding, she listened in absolute silence. Never in all her life had she heard him speak in such a manner. She could not make out whether bitterness lay under his light and easy speech, whether a maliciously perverse humour lurked there, whether it was some new mockery.

He said carelessly: "I give what I receive. And I have never received any very serious attention from anybody. I'm only Duane Mallett, identified with the wealthy section of society you inhabit, the son of a wealthy man, who went abroad and dabbled in colour and who paints pictures of pretty women. Everybody and the newspapers know me. What I see of women is a polished coquetry that mirrors my fixed smirk; what I see of men is less interesting."

He looked out through the dusk at the darkening water:

"You say you are beginning to feel isolated. Can anybody with any rudiment of intellect feel otherwise in the social environment you and I inhabit—where distinction and inherited position count for absolutely nothing unless propped up by wealth—where any ass is tolerated whose fortune and lineage pass inspection—where there is no place for intelligence and talent, even when combined with breeding and lineage, unless you are properly ballasted with money enough to forget that you have any?"

He laughed.

"So you feel isolated? I do, too. And I'm going to get out. I'm tired of decorating a set where the shuttle-cock of conversation is worn thin, frayed, ragged! Where the battledore is fashionable scandal and the players half dead with ennui and their neighbour's wives——"

"Duane!"

"Oh, Lord, you're a world-wise graduate at twenty-two! Truth won't shock you, more's the pity.... As for the game—I'm done with it; I can't stand it. The amusement I extract doesn't pay. Good God! and you wonder why I kiss a few of you for distraction's sake, press a finger-tip or two, brush a waist with my sleeve!"

He laughed unpleasantly, and bent forward in the darkness, clasped hands hanging between his knees.

"Duane," she said in astonishment, "what do you mean? Are you trying to quarrel with me, just when, for the first time, something in this new forest country seemed to be drawing us together, making us the comrades we once were?"

"We're too old to be comrades. That's book rubbish. Men and women have nothing in common, intellectually, unless they're in love. For company, for straight conversation, for business, for sport, a man would rather be with men. And either you and I are like everybody else or we're going to really care for each other. Not for your pretty face and figure, or for my grin, my six feet, and thin shanks; I can care for face and figure in any woman. What's the use of marrying for what you'll scarcely notice in a month?... If you are you, Geraldine, under all your attractive surface there's something else which you have never given me."

"Wh—what?" she asked faintly.

"Intelligent interest in me."

"Do you mean," she said slowly, "that you think I underestimate you?"

"Not as I am. I don't amount to much; but I might if you cared."

"Cared for you?"

"No, confound it! Cared for what I could be."

"I—I don't think I understand. What could you be?"

"A man, for one thing. I'm a thing that dances. A fashionable portrait painter for another. The combination is horrible."

"You are a successful painter."

"Am I? Geraldine, in all the small talk you and I have indulged in since my return from abroad, have you ever asked me one sincere, intelligent, affectionate question about my work?"

"I—yes—but I don't know anything about——"

He laughed, and it hurt her.

"Don't you understand," she said, "that ordinary people are very shy about talking art to a professional——"

"I don't want you to talk art. Any little thing with blue eyes and blond curls can do it. I wanted you to see what I do, say what you think, like it or damn it—only do something about it! You've never been to my studio except to stand with the perfumed crowd and talk commonplaces in front of a picture."

"I can't go alone."

"Can't you?" he asked, looking closely at her in the dusk, so close that she could see every mocking feature.

"Yes," she said in a low, surprised voice, "I could go alone—anywhere—with you.... I didn't realise it before, Duane."

"You never tried. You once mistook an impulse of genuine passion for the sort of thing I've done since. You made a terrific fuss about being kissed when I saw, as soon as I saw you, that I wanted to win you, if you'd let me. Since then you've chosen the key-note of our relations, not I, and you don't like my interpretation of my part."

For a while she sat silent, preoccupied with this totally new revelation of a man about whom she supposed she had long ago made up her mind.

"I'm glad we've had this talk," she said at last.

"I am, too. I haven't asked you to fall in love with me; I haven't asked for your confidence. I've asked you to take an intelligent, affectionate interest in what I might become, and perhaps you and I won't be so lonely if you do."

He struck a match in the darkness and lighted a cigarette. Close inshore Scott Seagrave's electric torch flashed. They heard the velvety scraping of the canoe, the rattle and thump as he flung it, bottom upward, on the sandy point.

"Hello, you people! Where are you?"—sweeping the wood's edge with his flash-light—"oh, there you are. Isn't this glorious? Did you ever see such a sight as those big fellows jumping?"

"Meanwhile," said his sister, rising, "our guests are doubtless yelling with hunger. What time is it, Duane? Half-past eight? Please hurry, Scott; we've got to get back and dress in five minutes!"

"I can do it easily," announced her brother, going ahead to light the path. And all the way home he discussed aloud upon the stripping, hatching, breeding, care, and diseases of trout, never looking back, and quite confident that they were listening attentively to his woodland lecture.

"Duane," she said, lowering her voice, "do you think all our misunderstandings are ended?"

"Certainly," he replied gaily. "Don't you?"

"But how am I going to make everybody think you are not frivolous?"

"I am frivolous. There's lots of froth to me—on top. You know that sort of foam you see on grass-stems in the fields. Hidden away inside is a very clever and busy little creature. He uses the froth to protect himself."

"Are you going to froth?"

"Yes—until——"

"Until what?"

"You——"

"Go on."

"Shall I say it?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, unless you and I find each other intellectually satisfactory."

"You said only a man—in love with a woman—could find her interesting in that way."

"Yes. What of it?"

"Nothing.... Only I'm afraid you'll have to froth, then," she said, laughing. "I haven't any intention of falling in love with you, Duane, and you'll find me stupid if I don't. Do you know that what you intimate is very horrid?"

"Why?"

"Yes, it is. Besides, it's a sort of threat——"

"A threat?"

"Certainly. You threaten to—you know perfectly well what you threaten to do unless I immediately consider the possibility of our—caring for each other—sentimentally."

"But what do you care if you don't care?"

"I—don't. All the same it's horrid and—and unfair. Suppose I was frothy and behaved——"

"Misbehaved?"

"Yes. Just because you wouldn't agree to take a sentimental interest in me?"

"I would agree! I'll agree now!"

"Suppose you wouldn't?"

"I can't imagine——"

"Oh, Duane, be honest! And I'll tell you flatly—if you do misbehave. Just because I don't particularly desire to rush into your arms——"

"But I haven't threatened to."

Unconsciously she laid her hand on his arm again, slipping it a little way under.

"You're just as you were years ago—just the dearest of playmates. We're not too old to play, are we?"

"I can't with you; it's too dangerous."

"What nonsense! Yes, you can. You like me for my intelligence in spite of what you say about men and women——"

"I wouldn't care for your intelligence if I were not in——"

"Duane, stop, please!"

"In danger," he continued blandly, "of proving my proposition."

"You are insufferable. I am as intelligent as you."

"I know it, but it wouldn't attract me unless——"

"It ought to," she said hastily. "And, Duane, I'm going to make you take me into account. I'm going to exercise a man's privilege with you by—by saying frankly—several things——"

"What things?"

The amused mockery in his voice gave her courage.

"For one thing, I'm going to tell you that people—gossip—that there are—are——"

"Rumours?" he asked in pretended anxiety.

"Yes.... About you and—of course they are silly and contemptible; but what's the use of being attentive enough to a woman—careless enough to give colour to them?"

After an interval he said: "Perhaps you'll tell me who beside myself these rumours concern?"

"You know, don't you?"

"There might be several," he said coolly. "Who is it?"

For a moment a tiny flash of anger made her cheeks hot. Then she said:

"You know perfectly well it's Rosalie. I think we have become good enough comrades for me to use a man's privilege——"

"Men wouldn't permit themselves that sort of privilege," he said, laughing.

"Aren't men frank with their friends?" she demanded hotly.

"About as frank as women."

"I thought—" She hesitated, tingling with the old desire to hurt him, flick him in the raw, make him wince in his exasperating complacency. Then, "I've said it anyhow. I'm trying to show an interest in you—as you asked me to do——"

He turned in the darkness, caught her hand:

"You dear little thing," he whispered, laughing.



CHAPTER VI

ADRIFT

During the week the guests at Roya-Neh were left very much to their own devices. Nobody was asked to do anything; there were several good enough horses at their disposal, two motor cars, a power-boat, canoes, rods, and tennis courts and golf links. The chances are they wanted sea-bathing. Inland guests usually do.

Scott Seagrave, however, concerned himself little about his guests. All day long he moused about his new estate, field-glasses dangling, cap on the back of his head, pockets bulging with untidy odds and ends until the increasing carelessness of his attire and manners moved Kathleen Severn to protest.

"I don't know what is the matter with you, Scott," she said. "You were always such a fastidious boy—even dandified. Doesn't anybody ever cut your hair? Doesn't somebody keep your clothes in order?"

"Yes, but I tear 'em again," he replied, carefully examining a small dark-red newt which he held in the palm of one hand. "I say, Kathleen, look at this little creature. I was messing about under the ledges along Hurryon Brook, and found this amphibious gentleman occupying the ground-floor apartment of a flat stone."

Kathleen craned her dainty neck over the shoulder of his ragged shooting coat.

"He's red enough to be poisonous, isn't he? Oh, do be careful!"

"It's only a young newt. Take him in your hand; he's cool and clammy and rather agreeable."

"Scott, I won't touch him!"

"Yes, you will!" He caught her by the arm; "I'm going to teach you not to be afraid of things outdoors. This lizard-like thing is perfectly harmless. Hold out your hand!"

"Oh, Scott, don't make me——"

"Yes, I will. I thought you and I were going to be in thorough accord and sympathy and everything else."

"Yes, but you mustn't bully me."

"I'm not. I merely want you to get over your absurd fear of live things, so that you and I can really enjoy ourselves. You said you would, Kathleen."

"Can't we be in perfect sympathy and roam about and—and everything, unless I touch such things?"

He said reproachfully, balancing the little creature on his palm: "The fun is in being perfectly confident and fearless. You have no idea how I like all these things. You said you were going to like 'em, too."

"I do—rather."

"Then take this one and pet it."

She glanced at the boy beside her, realising how completely their former relations were changing.

Long ago she had given all her heart to the Seagrave children—all the unspent passion in her had become an unswerving devotion to them. And now, a woman still young, the devotion remained, but time was modifying it in a manner sometimes disquieting. She tried not to remember that now, in Scott, she had a man to deal with, and tried in vain; and dealt with him weakly, and he was beginning to do with her as he pleased.

"You do like to bully me, don't you?" she said.

"I only want you to like to do what I like to do."

She stood silent a moment, then, with a shudder, held out her hand, fingers rigid and wide apart.

"Oh!" she protested, as he placed the small dark-red amphibian on the palm, where it crinkled up and lowered its head.

"That's the idea!" he said, delighted. "Here, I'll take it now. Some day you'll be able to handle snakes if you'll only have patience."

"But I don't want to." She stood holding out the contaminated hand for a moment, then dropped on her knees and scrubbed it vigorously in the brook.

"You see," said Scott, squatting cheerfully beside her, "you and I don't yet begin to realise the pleasure that there is in these woods and streams—hidden and waiting for us to discover it. I wouldn't bother with any other woman, but you've always liked what I like, and its half the fun in having you see these things. Look here, Kathleen, I'm keeping a book of field notes." He extracted from his stuffed pockets a small leather-covered book, fished out a stylograph, and wrote the date while she watched over his shoulder.

"Discovered what seems to be a small dark-red newt under a stone near Hurryon Brook. Couldn't make it bite me, so let Kathleen hold it. Query: Is it a land or water lizard, a salamander, or a newt; and what does it feed on and where does it deposit its eggs?"

Kathleen's violet eyes wandered to the written page opposite.

"Did you really see an otter, Scott?"

"Yes, I did!" he exclaimed. "Out in the Gray Water, swimming like a dog. That was yesterday afternoon. It's a scarce creature here. I'll tell you what, Kathleen; we'll take our luncheon and go out and spend the day watching for it."

"No," she said, drying her hands on her handkerchief, "I can't spend every minute of the day with you. Ask some other woman."

"What other woman?" She was gazing out at the sunlit ripples. A little unquiet thrill leaped through her veins, but she went on carelessly:

"Take some pretty woman out with you. There are several here——"

"Pretty woman," he repeated. "Do you think that's the only reason I want you to come?"

"Only reason? What a silly thing to say, Scott. I am not a pretty woman to you—in that sense——"

"You are the prettiest I ever saw," he said, looking at her; and again the unquiet thrill ran like lightning through her veins. But she only laughed carelessly and said:

"Oh, of course, Geraldine and I expect our big brother to say such things."

"It has nothing to do with Geraldine or with brothers," he said doggedly. She strove to laugh, caught his gaze, and, discountenanced, turned toward the stream.

"We can cross on the stepping stones," she suggested. And after a moment: "Are you coming?"

"See here, Kathleen," he said, "you're not acting squarely with me."

"What do you mean?"

"No, you're not. I'm a man, and you know it."

"Of course you are, Scott."

"Then I wish you'd recognise it. What's the use of mortifying me when I act—speak—behave as any man behaves who—who—is—fond of a—person."

"But I don't mean to—to mortify you. What have I done?"

He dug his hands into the pockets of his riding breeches, took two or three short turns along the bank, came back to where she was standing.

"You probably don't remember," he said, "one night this spring when—when—" He stopped short. The vivid tint in her cheeks was his answer—a swift, disconcerting answer to an incomplete question, the remainder of which he himself had scarcely yet analysed.

"Scott, dear," she said steadily, in spite of her softly burning cheeks, "I will be quite honest with you if you wish. I do know what you've been trying to say. I am conscious that you are no longer the boy I could pet and love and caress without embarrassment to either of us. You are a man, but try to remember that I am several years older——"

"Does that matter!" he burst out.

"Yes, dear, it does.... I care for you—and Geraldine—more than for anybody in the world. I understand your loyalty to me, Scott, and I—I love it. But don't confuse it with any serious sentiment."

"I do care seriously."

"You make me very happy. Care for me very, very seriously; I want you to; I—I need it. But don't mistake the kind of affection that we have for each other for anything deeper, will you?"

"Don't you want to care for me—that way?"

"Not that way, Scott."

"Why?"

"I've told you. I am so much older——"

"Couldn't you, all the same?"

She was trembling inwardly. She leaned against a white birch-tree and passed one hand across her eyes and upward through the thick burnished hair.

"No, I couldn't," she whispered.

The boy walked to the edge of the brook. Past him hurried the sun-tipped ripples; under them, in irregular wedge formation, little ones ahead, big ones in the rear, lay a school of trout, wavering silhouettes of amber against the bottom sands.

One arm encircling the birch-tree, she looked after him in silence, waiting. And after a while he turned and came back to her:

"I suppose you knew I fell in love with you that night when—when—you remember, don't you?"

She did not answer.

"I don't know how it happened," he said: "something about you did it. I want to say that I've loved you ever since. It's made me serious.... I haven't bothered with girls since. You are the only woman who interests me. I think about you most of the time when I'm not doing something else," he explained naively. "I know perfectly well I'm in love with you because I don't dare touch you—and I've never thought of—of kissing you good-night as we used to before that night last spring.... You remember that we didn't do it that night, don't you?"

Still no answer, and Kathleen's delicate, blue-veined hands were clenched at her sides and her breath came irregularly.

"That was the reason," he said. "I don't know how I've found courage to tell you. I've often been afraid you would laugh at me if I told you.... If it's only our ages—you seem as young as I do...." He looked up, hopefully; but she made no response.

The boy drew a long breath.

"I love you, anyway," he said. "And that's how it is."

She neither spoke nor stirred.

"I suppose," he went on, "because I was such a beast of a boy, you can never forget it."

"You were the sweetest, the best—" Her voice broke; she swung about, moved away a few paces, stood still. When he halted behind her she turned.

"Dearest," she said tremulously, "let me give you what I can—love, as always—solicitude, companionship, deep sympathy in your pleasures, deep interest in your amusements.... Don't ask for more; don't think that you want more. Don't try to change the loyalty and love you have always had for something you—neither of us understand—neither of us ought to desire—or even think of——"

"Why?"

"Can't you understand? Even if I were not too old in years, I dare not give up what I have of you and Geraldine for this new—for anything more hazardous.... Suppose it were so—that I could venture to think I cared for you that way? What might I put in peril?—Geraldine's affection for me—perhaps her relations with you.... And the world is cynical, Scott, and you are wealthy even among very rich men, and I was your paid guardian—quite penniless—engaged to care for and instruct——"

"Don't say such things!" he said angrily.

"The world would say them—your friends—perhaps Geraldine might be led to doubt—Oh, Scott, dear, I know, I know! And above all—I am afraid. There are too many years between us—too many blessed memories of my children to risk.... Don't try to make me care for you in any other way."

A quick flame leaped in his eyes.

"Could I?"

"No!" she exclaimed, appalled.

"Then why do you ask me not to try? I believe I could!"

"You cannot! You cannot, believe me. Won't you believe me? It must not happen; it is all wrong—in every way——"

He stood looking at her with a new expression on his face.

"If you are so alarmed," he said slowly, "you must have already thought about it. You'll think about it now, anyway."

"We are both going to forget it. Promise that you will!" She added hurriedly: "Drop my hand, please; there is Geraldine—and Mr. Grandcourt, too!... Tell me—do my eyes look queer? Are they red and horrid?... Don't look at me that way. For goodness' sake, don't display any personal interest in me. Go and turn over some flat rocks and find some lizards!"

Geraldine, bare-armed and short-skirted, came swinging along the woodland path, Delancy Grandcourt dogging her heels, as usual, carrying a pair of rods and catching the artificial flies in the bushes at every step.

"We're all out of trout at the house!" she called across to the stream to her brother. "Jack Dysart is fishing down the creek with Naida and Sylvia. Where is Duane?"

"Somewhere around, I suppose," replied Scott sulkily. His sister took a running jump, cleared the bank, and alighted on a rock in the stream. Poised there she looked back at Grandcourt, laughed, sprang forward from stone to stone, and leaped to the moss beside Kathleen.

"Hello, dear!" she nodded. "Where did you cross? And where is Duane?"

"We crossed by the log bridge below," replied Kathleen. She added: "Duane left us half an hour ago. Wasn't it half an hour ago, Scott?" with a rising inflection that conveyed something of warning, something of an appeal. But on Scott's face the sullen disconcerted expression had not entirely faded, and his sister inspected him curiously. Then without knowing why, exactly, she turned and looked at Kathleen.

There was a subdued and dewy brilliancy in Kathleen's eyes, a bright freshness to her cheeks, radiantly and absurdly youthful; and something else—something so indefinable, so subtle, that only another woman's instinct might divine it—something invisible and inward, which transfigured her with a youthful loveliness almost startling.

They looked at one another. Geraldine, conscious of something she could not understand, glanced again at her sulky brother.

"What's amiss, Scott?" she asked. "Has anything gone wrong anywhere?"

Scott, pretending to be very busy untangling Grandcourt's cast from the branches of a lusty young birch, said, "No, of course not," and the girl, wondering, turned to Kathleen, who sustained her questioning eyes without a tremor.

"What's the matter with Scott?" asked his sister. "He's the guiltiest-looking man—why, it's absurd, Kathleen! Upon my word, the boy is blushing!"

"What!" exclaimed Scott so furiously that everybody laughed. And presently Geraldine asked again where Duane was.

"Rosalie Dysart is canoeing on the Gray Water, and she hailed him and he left us and went down to the river," said Kathleen carelessly.

"Did Duane join her?"

"I think so—" She hesitated, watching Geraldine's sombre eyes. "I really don't know," she added. And, in a lower voice: "I wish either Duane or Rosalie would go. They certainly are behaving unwisely."

Geraldine turned and looked through the woods toward the Gray Water.

"It's their affair," she said curtly. "I've got to make Delancy fish or we won't have enough trout for luncheon. Scott!" calling to her brother, "your horrid trout won't rise this morning. For goodness' sake, try to catch something beside lizards and water-beetles!"

For a moment she stood looking around her, as though perplexed and preoccupied. There was sunlight on the glade and on the ripples, but the daylight seemed to have become duller to her.

She walked up-stream for a little distance before she noticed Grandcourt plodding faithfully at her heels.

"Oh!" she said impatiently, "I thought you were fishing. You must catch something, you know, or we'll all go hungry."

"Nothing bites on these bally flies," he explained.

"Nothing bites because your flies are usually caught in a tree-top. Trout are not arboreal. I'm ashamed of you, Delancy. If you can't keep your line free in the woods"—she hesitated, then reddening a little under her tan—"you had better go and get a canoe and find Duane Mallett and help him catch—something worth while."

"Don't you want me to stay with you?" asked the big, awkward fellow appealingly. "There's no fun in being with Rosalie and Duane."

"No, I don't. Look! Your flies are in that bush! Untangle them and go to the Gray Water."

"Won't you come, too, Miss Seagrave?"

"No; I'm going back to the house.... And don't you dare return without a decent brace of trout."

"All right," he said resignedly. The midges bothered him; he mopped his red face, tugged at the line, but the flies were fast in a hazel bush.

"Damn this sort of thing," he muttered, looking piteously after Geraldine. She was already far away among the trees, skirts wrapped close to avoid briers, big straw hat dangling in one hand.

As she walked toward the Sachem's Gate she was swinging her hat and singing, apparently as unconcernedly as though care rested lightly upon her young shoulders.

Out on the high-road a number of her guests whizzed past in one of Scott's motors; there came a swift hail, a gust of wind-blown laughter, and the car was gone in a whirl of dust. She stood in the road watching it recede, then walked forward again toward the house.

Her accustomed elasticity appeared to have left her; the sun was becoming oppressive; her white-shod feet dragged a little, which was so unusual that she straightened her head and shoulders with nervous abruptness.

"What on earth is the matter with me?" she said, half aloud, to herself.

During these last two months, and apparently apropos of nothing at all, an unaccustomed sense of depression sometimes crept upon her.

At first she disregarded it as the purely physical lassitude of spring, but now it was beginning to disquiet her. Once a hazy suspicion took shape—hastily dismissed—that some sense, some temporarily suppressed desire was troubling her. The same idea had awakened again that evening on the terrace when the faint odour from the decanter attracted her. And again she suspected, and shrank away into herself, shocked, frightened, surprised, yet still defiantly incredulous.

Yet her suspicions had been correct. It was habit, disturbed by the tardiness of accustomed tribute, that stirred at moments, demanding recognition.

Since that night in early spring when fear and horror of herself had suddenly checked a custom which she had hitherto supposed to be nothing worse than foolish, twice—at times inadvertently, at times deliberately—she had sought relief from sleepless nervousness and this new depression in the old and apparently harmless manner of her girlhood. For weeks now she had exercised little control of herself, feeling immune, yet it scared her a little to recognise again in herself the restless premonitions of desire. For here, in the sunshine of the forest-bordered highway, that same dull uneasiness was stirring once more.

It was true, other things had stirred her to uneasiness that morning—an indefinable impression concerning Kathleen—a definite one which concerned Rosalie Dysart and Duane, and which began to exasperate her.

All her elasticity was gone now; tired without reason, she plodded on along the road in her little white shoes, head bent, brown eyes brooding, striving to fix her wandering thoughts on Duane Mallett to fight down the threatening murmurs of a peril still scarcely comprehended.

"Anyway," she said half aloud, "even if I ever could care for him, I dare not let myself do it with this absurd inclination always threatening me."

She had said it! Scarcely yet understanding the purport of her own words, yet electrified, glaringly enlightened by them, she halted. A confused sense that something vital had occurred in her life stilled her heart and her breathing together.

After a moment she straightened up and walked forward, turned across the lawn and into the syringa-bordered drive.

There was nobody in the terrace except Bunbury Gray in a brilliant waistcoat, who sat smoking a very large faience pipe and reading a sporting magazine. He got up with alacrity when he saw her, fetched her a big wicker chair, evidently inclined to let her divert him.

"Oh, I'm not going to," she observed, sinking into the cushions. For a moment she felt rather limp, then a quiver passed through her, tightening the relaxed nerves.

"Bunbury," she said, "do you know any men who ever get tired of idleness and clothes and their neighbours' wives?"

"Sure," he said, surprised, "I get tired of those things all right. I've got enough of this tailor, for example," looking at his trousers. "I'm tired of idleness, too. Shall we do something and forget the cut of my clothes?"

"What do you do when you tire of people and things?"

"Change partners or go away. That's easy."

"You can't change yourself—or go away from yourself."

"But I don't get tired of myself," he explained in astonishment. She regarded him curiously from the depths of her wicker chair.

"Bunbury, do you remember when we were engaged?"

He grinned. "Rather. I wouldn't mind being it again."

"Engaged?"

"Sure thing. Will you take me on again, Geraldine?"

"I thought you cared for Sylvia Quest."

"I do, but I can stop it."

She still regarded him with brown-eyed curiosity.

"Didn't you really tire of our engagement?"

"You did. You said that my tailor is the vital part of me."

She laughed. "Well, you are only a carefully groomed combination of New York good form and good nature, aren't you?"

"I don't know. That's rather rough, isn't it? Or do you really mean it that way?"

"No, Bunny dear. I only mean that you're like the others. All the men I know are about the same sort. You all wear too many ties and waistcoats; you are, and say, and do too many kinds of fashionable things. You play too much tennis, drink too many pegs, gamble too much, ride and drive too much. You all have too much and too many—if you understand that! You ask too much and you give too little; you say too much which means too little. Is there none among you who knows something that amounts to something, and how to say it and do it?"

"What the deuce are you driving at, Geraldine?" he asked, bewildered.

"I'm just tired and irritable, Bunny, and I'm taking it out on you.... Because you were always kind—and even when foolish you were often considerate.... That's a new waistcoat, isn't it?"

"Well—I don't—know," he began, perplexed and suspicious, but she cut him short with a light little laugh and reached out to pat his hand.

"Don't mind me. You know I like you.... I'm only bored with your species. What do you do when you don't know what to do, Bunny?"

"Take a peg," he said, brightening up. "Do you—shall I call somebody——"

"No, please."

She extended her slim limbs and crossed her feet. Lying still there in the sunshine, arms crooked behind her head, she gazed straight out ahead. Light breezes lifted her soft bright hair; the same zephyrs bore from tennis courts on the east the far laughter and calling of the unseen players.

"Who are they?" she inquired.

"The Pink 'uns, Naida, and Jack Dysart. There's ten up on every set," he added, "and I've side obligations with Rosalie and Duane. Take you on if you like; odds are on the Pink 'uns. Or I'll get a lump of sugar and we can play 'Fly Loo.'"

"No, thanks."

A few moments later she said:

"Do you know, somehow, recently, the forest world—all this pretty place of lakes and trees—" waving her arm toward the horizon—"seems to be tarnished with the hard living and empty thinking of the people I have brought into it.... I include myself. The region is redolent of money and the things it buys. I had a better time before I had any or heard about it."

"Why, you've always had it——"

"But I didn't know it. I'd like to give mine away and do something for a living."

"Oh, every girl has that notion once in a lifetime."

"Have they?" she asked.

"Sure. It's hysteria. I had it myself once. But I found I could keep busy enough doing nothing without presenting my income to the Senegambians and spending life in a Wall Street office. Of course if I had a pretty fancy for the artistic and useful—as Duane Mallett has—I suppose I'd get busy and paint things and sell 'em by the perspiration of my brow——"

She said disdainfully: "If you were never any busier than Duane, you wouldn't be very busy."

"I don't know. Duane seems to keep at it, even here, doesn't he?"

She looked up in surprise: "Duane hasn't done any work since he's been here, has he?"

"Didn't you know? What do you suppose he's about every morning?"

"He's about—Rosalie," she said coolly. "I've never seen any colour box or easel in their outfit."

"Oh, he keeps his traps at Hurryon Lodge. He's made a lot of sketches. I saw several at the Lodge. And he's doing a big canvas of Rosalie down there, too."

"At Hurryon Lodge?"

"Yes. Miller lets them have the garret for a studio."

"I didn't know that," she said slowly.

"Didn't you? People are rather catty about it."

"Catty?"

Sheer surprise silenced her for a while, then hurt curiosity drove her to questions; but little Bunbury didn't know much more about the matter, merely shrugging his shoulders and saying: "It's casual but it's all right."

Later the tennis players, sunburned and perspiring, came swinging up from the courts on their way to the showers. Bunbury began to settle his obligations; Naida and the Pink 'uns went indoors; Jack Dysart, handsome, dishevelled, sat down beside Geraldine, fastening his sleeves.

"I lost twice twenty," he observed. "Bunny is in fifty, I believe. Duane and Rosalie lose."

"Is that all you care about the game?" she asked with a note of contempt in her voice.

"Oh, it's good for one's health," he said.

"So is confession, but there's no sport in it. Tell me, Mr. Dysart, don't you play any game for it's own sake?"

"Two, mademoiselle," he said politely.

"What two?"

"Chess is one."

"What is the other?"

"Love," he replied, smiling at her so blandly that she laughed. Then she thought of Rosalie, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say something impudent. But "Do you do that game very well?" was all she said.

"Would you care to judge how well I do it?"

"As umpire? Yes, if you like."

He said: "We will umpire our own game, Miss Seagrave."

"Oh, we couldn't do that, could we? We couldn't play and umpire, too." Suddenly the thought of Duane and Rosalie turned her bitter and she said:

"We'll have two perfectly disinterested umpires. I choose your wife for one. Whom do you choose?"

Over his handsome face the slightest muscular change passed, but far from wincing he nodded coolly.

"One umpire is enough," he said. "When our game is well on you may ask Rosalie to judge how well I've done it—if you care to."

The bright smile she wore changed. Her face was now only a lovely dark-eyed mask, behind which her thoughts had suddenly begun racing—wild little thoughts, all tumult and confusion, all trembling, too, with some scarcely understood hurt lashing them to recklessness.

"We'll have two umpires," she insisted, scarcely knowing what she said. "I'll choose Duane for the second. He and Rosalie ought to be able to agree on the result of our game."

Dysart turned his head away leisurely, then looked around again unsmiling.

"Two umpires? Soit! But that means you consent to play."

"Play?"

"Certainly."

"With you?"

"With me."

"I'll consider it.... Do you know we have been talking utter nonsense?"

"That's part of the game."

"Oh, then—do you assume that the—the game has already begun?"

"It usually opens that way, I believe."

"And where does it end, Mr. Dysart?"

"That is for you to say," he replied in a lower voice.

"Oh! And what are the rules?"

"The player who first falls really in love loses. There are no stakes. We play as sportsmen—for the game's sake. Is it understood?"

She hesitated, smiling, a little excited, a little interested in the way he put things.

At that same moment, across the lawn, Rosalie and Duane strolled into view. She saw them, and with a nervous movement, almost involuntary, she turned her back on them.

Neither she nor Dysart spoke. She gazed very steadily at the horizon, as though there were sounds beyond the green world's rim. A few seconds later a shadow fell over the terrace at her feet—two shadows intermingled. She saw them on the grass at her feet, then quietly lifted her head.

"We caught no trout," said Rosalie, sitting down on the arm of the chair that Duane drew forward. "I fussed about in that canoe until Duane came along, and then we went in swimming."

"Swimming?" repeated Geraldine, dumfounded.

Rosalie balanced herself serenely on her chair-arm.

"Oh, we often do that."

"Swim—where?"

"Why across the Gray Water, child!"

"But—there are no bath houses——"

Rosalie laughed outright.

"Quite Arcadian, isn't it? Duane has the forest on one side of the Gray Water for a dressing-room, and I the forest on the other side. Then we swim out and shake hands in the middle. Our bathing dresses are drying on Miller's lawn. Please do tell me somebody is scandalised. I've done my best to brighten up this house party."

Dysart, really discountenanced, but not showing it, lighted a cigarette and asked pleasantly if the water was agreeable.

"It's magnificent," said Duane; "it was like diving into a lake of iced Apollinaris. Geraldine, why on earth don't you build some bath houses on the Gray Waters?"

Perhaps she had not heard his question. She began to talk very animatedly to Rosalie about several matters of no consequence. Dysart rose, stretched his sunburned arms with over-elaborate ease, tossed away his cigarette, picked up his tennis bat, and said: "See you at luncheon. Are you coming, Rosalie?"

"In a moment, Jack." She went on talking inconsequences to Geraldine; her husband waited, exchanging a remark or two with Duane in his easy, self-possessed fashion.

"Dear," said Rosalie at last to Geraldine, "I must run away and dry my hair. How did we come out at tennis, Jack?"

"All to the bad," he replied serenely, and nodding to Geraldine and Duane he entered the house, his young wife strolling beside him and twisting up her wet hair.

Duane seated himself and crossed his lank legs, ready for an amiable chat before he retired to dress for luncheon; but Geraldine did not even look toward him. She was lying deep in the chair, apparently relaxed and limp; but every nerve in her was at tension, every delicate muscle taut and rigid, and in her heart was anger unutterable, and close, very close to the lids which shadowed with their long fringe the brown eyes' velvet, were tears.

"What have you been up to all the morning?" he asked. "Did you try the fishing?"

"Yes."

"Anything doing?"

"No."

"I thought they wouldn't rise. It's too clear and hot. That's why I didn't keep on with Kathleen and Scott. Two are enough on bright water. Don't you think so?"

She said nothing.

"Besides," he added, "I knew you had old Grandcourt running close at heel and that made four rods on Hurryon. So what was the use of my joining in?"

She made no reply.

"You didn't mind, did you?" he asked carelessly.

"No."

"Oh, all right," he nodded, not feeling much relieved.

The strange blind anger still possessed her. She lay there immobile, expressionless, enduring it, not trying even to think why; yet her anger was rising against him, and it surged, receded helplessly, flushed her veins again till they tingled. But her lids remained closed; the lashes rested softly on the curve of her cheeks; not a tremor touched her face.

"I am wondering whether you are feeling all right," he ventured uneasily, conscious of the tension between them.

With an effort she took command of herself.

"The sun was rather hot. It's a headache; I walked back by the road."

"With the faithful one?"

"No," she said evenly, "Mr. Grandcourt remained to fish."

"He went to worship and remained to fish," said Duane, laughing. The girl lifted her face to look at him—a white little face so strange that the humour died out in his eyes.

"He's a good deal of a man," she said. "It's one of my few pleasant memories of this year—Mr. Grandcourt's niceness to me—and to all women."

She set her elbow on the chair's edge and rested her cheek in her hollowed hand. Her gaze had become remote once more.

"I didn't know you took him so seriously," he said in a low voice. "I'm sorry, Geraldine."

All her composure had returned. She lifted her eyes insolently.

"Sorry for what?"

"For speaking as I did."

"Oh, I don't mind. I thought you might be sorry for yourself."

"Myself?"

"And your neighbour's wife," she added.

"Well, what about myself and my neighbour's wife?"

"I'm not familiar with such matters." Her face did not change, but the burning anger suddenly welled up in her again. "I don't know anything about such affairs, but if you think I ought to I might try to learn." She laughed and leaned back into the depths of her chair. "You and I are such intimate friends it's a shame I shouldn't understand and sympathise with what most interests you."

He remained silent, gazing down at his shadow on the grass, hands clasped loosely between his knees. She strove to study him calmly; her mind was chaos; only the desire to hurt him persisted, rendered sterile by the confused tumult of her thoughts.

Presently, looking up:

"Do you doubt that things are not right between—my neighbour's wife—and me?" he inquired.

"The matter doesn't interest me."

"Doesn't it?"

"No."

"Then I have misunderstood you. What is the matter that does interest you, Geraldine?"

She made no reply.

He said, carelessly good-humoured: "I like women. It's curious that they know it instinctively, because when they're bored or lonely they drift toward me.... Lonely women are always adrift, Geraldine. There seems to be some current that sets in toward me; it catches them and they drift in, linger, and drift on. I seem to be the first port they anchor in.... Then a day comes when they are gone—drifting on at hazard through the years——"

"Wiser for their experience at Port Mallett?"

"Perhaps. But not sadder, I think."

"A woman adrift has no regrets," she said with contempt.

"Wrong. A woman who is in love has none."

"That is what I mean. The hospitality of Port Mallett ought to leave them with no regrets."

He laughed. "But they are not loved," he said. "They know it. That's why they drift on."

She turned on him white and tremulous.

"Haven't you even the excuse of caring for her?"

"Who?"

"A neighbour's wife—who comes drifting into your hospitable haven!"

"I don't pretend to love her, if that is what you mean," he said pleasantly.

"Then you make her believe it—and that's dastardly!"

"Oh, no. Women don't love unless made love to. You've only read that in books."

She said a little breathlessly: "You are right. I know men and women only through books. It's time I learned for myself."



CHAPTER VII

TOGETHER

The end of June and of the house party at Roya-Neh was now near at hand, and both were to close with a moonlight fete and dance in the forest, invitations having been sent to distant neighbours who had been entertaining similar gatherings at Iron Hill and Cloudy Mountain—the Grays, Beekmans, Ellises, and Grandcourts.

Silks and satins, shoe buckles and powdered hair usually mark the high tide of imaginative originality among this sort of people. So it was to be the inevitable Louis XVI fete—or as near to it as attenuated, artistic intelligence could manage, and they altered Duane's very clever and correct sketches to suit themselves, careless of anachronism, and sent the dainty water-colour drawings to town in order that those who sweat and sew in the perfumed ateliers of Fifth Avenue might use them as models.

"The fun—if there's any in dressing up—ought to lie in making your own costumes," observed Duane. But nobody displayed any inclination to do so. And now, on hurry orders, the sewers in the hot Fifth Avenue ateliers sewed faster. Silken and satin costumes, paste jewelry and property small-swords were arriving by express; maids flew about the house at Roya-Neh, trying on, fussing with lace and ribbon, bodice and flowered pannier, altering, retrimming, adjusting. Their mistresses met in one another's bedrooms for mysterious confabs over head-dress and coiffure, lace scarf, and petticoat.

As for the men, they surreptitiously tried on their embroidered coats and breeches, admired themselves in secrecy, and let it go at that, returning with embarrassed relief to cards, tennis, and the various forms of amiable idleness to which they were accustomed. Only Englishmen can masquerade seriously.

Later, however, the men were compelled to pay some semblance of attention to the general preparations, assemble their foot-gear, head-gear, stars, orders, sashes, swords, and try them on for Duane Mallett—to that young man's unconcealed dissatisfaction.

"You certainly resemble a scratch opera chorus," he observed after passing in review the sheepish line-up in his room. "Delancy, you're the limit as a Black Mousquetier—and, by the way, there weren't any in the reign of Louis XVI, so perhaps that evens up matters. Dysart is the only man who looks the real thing—or would if he'd remove that monocle. As for Bunny and the Pink 'un, they ought to be in vaudeville singing la-la-la."

"That's really a compliment to our legs," observed Reggie Wye to Bunbury Gray, flourishing his property sword and gracefully performing a pas seul a la Genee.

Dysart, who had been sullen all day, regarded them morosely.

Scott Seagrave, in his conventional abbe's costume of black and white, excessively bored, stood by the window trying to catch a glimpse of the lake to see whether any decent fish were breaking, while Scott walked around him critically, not much edified by his costume or the way he wore it.

"You're a sad and self-conscious-looking bunch," he concluded. "Scott, I suppose you'll insist on wearing your mustache and eyeglasses."

"You bet," said Scott simply.

"All right. And kindly beat it. I want to try on my own plumage in peace."

So the costumed ones trooped off to their own quarters with the half-ashamed smirk usually worn by the American male who has persuaded himself to frivolity. Delancy Grandcourt tramped away down the hall banging his big sword, jingling his spurs, and flapping his loose boots. The Pink 'un and Bunbury Gray slunk off into obscurity, and Scott wandered back through the long hall until a black-and-red tiger moth attracted his attention, and he forgot his annoying appearance in frantic efforts to capture the brilliant moth.

Dysart, who had been left alone with Duane in the latter's room, contemplated himself sullenly in the mirror while Duane, seated on the window sill, waited for him to go.

"You think I ought to eliminate my eye-glass?" asked Dysart, still inspecting himself.

"Yes, in deference to the conventional prejudice of the times. Nobody wore 'em at that period."

"You seem to be a stickler for convention—of the Louis XVI sort more than for the XIX century variety," remarked Dysart with a sneer.

Duane looked up from his bored contemplation of the rug.

"You think I'm unconventional?" he asked with a smile.

"I believe I suggested something of the sort to my wife the other day."

"Ah," said Duane blandly, "does she agree with you, Dysart?"

"No doubt she does, because your tendencies toward the unconventional have been the subject of unpleasant comment recently."

"By some of your debutante conquests? You mustn't believe all they tell you."

"My own eyes and ears are competent witnesses. Do you understand me now?"

"No. Neither do you. Don't rely on such witnesses, Dysart; they lack character to corroborate them. Ask your wife to confirm me—if you ever find time enough to ask her anything."

"That's a damned impudent thing to say," returned Dysart, staring at him. A dull red stained his face, then faded.

Duane's eyebrows went up—just a shade—yet so insolently that the other stepped forward, the corners of his mouth white and twitching.

"I can speak more plainly," he said. "If you can't appreciate a pleasant hint I can easily accommodate you with the alternative."

There was silence for a moment.

"Dysart," said Duane, "what chance do you think you'd have in landing the—alternative?"

"That concerns me," said Dysart; and the pinched muscles around the mouth grew whiter and the man looked suddenly older. Duane had never before noticed how gray his temples were growing.

He said in a voice under perfect control: "You're right; the chances you care to take with me concern yourself. As for your ill-humour, I suppose I have earned it by being attentive to your wife. What is it you wish; that my hitherto very harmless attentions should cease?"

"Yes," said Dysart, and his square jaw quivered.

"Well, they won't. It takes the sort of man you are to strike classical attitudes. And, absurd as the paradox appears—and even taking into consideration your notorious indifference to your wife and your rather silly reputation as a debutante chaser—I do believe, Dysart, that, deep inside of you somewhere, there is enough latent decency to have inspired this resentment toward me—a resentment perfectly natural in any man who acts squarely toward his wife—but rather far fetched in your case."

Dysart, pallid, menacing, laid his hand on a chair.

The other laughed.

"As bad as that?" he asked contemptuously. "Don't do it, Dysart; it isn't in your line. You're only a good-looking, popular, dancing man; all your deviltry is in your legs, and I'd be obliged if they'd presently waft you out of my room."

"I suppose," said Dysart unsteadily, "that you would make yourself noisily ridiculous if I knocked your blackguard head off."

"It's only in novels that people are knocked down successfully and artistically," admitted the other. "In everyday life they resent it. Yes—if you do anything hysterical there will be some sort of a disgraceful noise, I suppose. It's shoot or suit in these unromantic days, Dysart, otherwise the newspapers laugh at you."

Dysart's well-shaped fists relaxed, the chair dropped, but even when he let it go murder danced in his eyes.

"Yes," he said, "it's shoot or a suit in these days; you're perfectly right, Mallett. And we'll let it go at that for the present."

He stood a moment, straight, handsome, his clearly stencilled eyebrows knitted, watching Duane. Whatever in the man's face and figure was usually colourless, unaccented, irresolute, disappeared as he glared rigidly at the other.

For there is no resentment like the resentment of the neglectful, no jealousy like the jealousy of the faithless.

"To resume, in plain English," he said, "keep away from my wife, Mallett. You comprehend that, don't you?"

"Perfectly. Now get out!"

Dysart hesitated for the fraction of a second longer, as though perhaps expecting further reply, then turned on his heel and walked out.

Later, while Duane was examining his own costume preparatory to trying it on, Scott Seagrave's spectacled and freckled visage protruded into the room. He knocked as an after-thought.

"Rosalie sent me. She's dressed in all her gimcracks and wants your expert opinion. I've got to go——"

"Where is she?"

"In her room. I'm going out to the hatchery with Kathleen——"

"Come and see Rosalie with me, first," said Duane, passing his arm through Scott's and steering him down the sunny corridor.

When they knocked, Mrs. Dysart admitted them, revealing herself in full costume, painted and powdered, the blinds pulled down, and the electric lights burning behind their rosy shades.

"It's my final dress rehearsal," she explained. "Mr. Mallett, is my hair sufficiently a la Lamballe to suit you?"

"Yes, it is. You're a perfect little porcelain figurette! There's not an anachronism in you or your make-up. How did you do it?"

"I merely stuck like grim death to your sketches," she said demurely.

Scott eyed her without particular interest. "Very corking," he said vaguely, "but I've got to go down to the hatchery with Kathleen, so you won't mind if I leave——"

He closed the door behind him before anybody could speak. Duane moved toward the door.

"It's a charming costume," he said, "and most charmingly worn; your hair is exactly right—not too much powder, you know——"

"Where shall I put my patch? Here?"

"Higher."

"Here?"

He came back to the centre of the room where she stood.

"Here," he said, indenting the firm, cool ivory skin with one finger, "and here. Wear two."

"And my rings—do you think that my fingers are overloaded?" She held out her fascinating smooth little hands. He supported them on his upturned palms and examined the gems critically.

They talked for a few moments about the rings, then: "Thank you so much," she said, with a carelessly friendly pressure. "How about my shoes? Are the buckles of the period?"

One of her hands encountered his at hazard, lingered, dropped, the fingers still linked lightly in his. She bent over, knees straight, and lifted the hem of her petticoat, displaying her Louis XVI footwear.

"Shoes and buckles are all right," he said; "faultless, true to the period—very fascinating.... I've got to go—one or two things to do——"

They examined the shoes for some time in silence; still bending over she turned her dainty head and looked around and up at him. There was a moment's pause, then he kissed her.

"I was afraid you'd do that—some day," she said, straightening up and stepping back one pace, so that their linked hands now hung pendant between them.

"I was sure of it, too," he said. "Now I think I'd better go—as all things are en regle, even the kiss, which was classical—pure—Louis XVI.... Besides, Scott was idiot enough to shut the door. That's Louis XVI, too, but too much realism is never artistic."

"We could open the door again—if that's why you're running away from me."

"What's the use?"

She glanced at the door and then calmly seated herself.

"Do you think that we are together too much?" she asked.

"Hasn't your husband made similar observations?" he replied, laughing.

"It isn't for him to make them."

"Hasn't he objected?"

"He has suddenly and unaccountably become disagreeable enough to make me wish he had some real grounds for his excitement!" she said coolly, and closed her teeth with a little click. She added, between them: "I'm inclined to give him something real to howl about."

He said: "You're adrift. Do you know it?"

"Certainly I know it. Are you prepared to offer salvage? I'm past the need of a pilot."

He smiled. "You haven't drifted very far yet—only as far as Mallett Harbour. That's usually the first port—for derelicts. Anchors are dropped rather frequently there—but, Rosalie, there's no safe mooring except in the home port."

Her pretty, flushed face grew very serious as she looked up questioningly.

"Isn't there an anchorage near you, Duane? Are you quite sure?"

"Why, no, dear, I'm not sure. But let me tell you something: it isn't in me to love again. And that isn't square to you."

After a silence she repeated: "Again? Have you been in love?"

"Yes."

"Are you embittered? I thought only callow fledglings moped."

"If I were embittered I'd offer free anchorage to all comers. That's the fledgling idea—when blighted—be a 'deevil among the weemin,'" he said, laughing.

"You have that hospitable reputation now," she persisted, unsmiling.

"Have I? Judge for yourself then—because no woman I ever knew cares anything for me now."

"You mean that if any of them had anything intimate to remember they'd never remain indifferent?"

"Well—yes."

"They'd either hate you or remember you with a certain tenderness."

"Is that what happens?" he asked, amused.

"I think so," she said thoughtfully.... "As for what you said, you are right, Duane; I am adrift.... You—or a man like you could easily board me—take me in tow. I'm quite sure that something about me signals a pilot; and that keen eyes and bitter tongues have noted it. And I don't care. Nor do I know yet what my capabilities for evil are.... Do you care to—find out?"

"It wouldn't be a square deal to you, Rosalie."

"And—if I don't care whether it's a square deal or not?"

"Why, dear," he said, covering her nervous, pretty hand with both of his, "I'd break your heart in a week."

He laughed, dropped her fingers, stepped back to the door, and, laying his hand on the knob, said evenly:

"That husband of yours is not the sort of man I particularly take to, but I believe he's about the average if you'd care to make him so."

She coloured with surprise. Then something in her scornful eyes inspired him with sudden intuition.

"As a matter of fact," he said lightly, "you care for him still."

"I can very easily prove the contrary," she said, walking slowly up to him, close, closer, until the slight tremor of contact halted her and her soft, irregular breath touched his face.

"What a girl like you needs," he laughed, taking her into his arms, "is a man to hold her this way—every now and then, and"—he kissed her—"tell her she is incomparable—which I cannot truthfully tell you, dear." He released her at arms' length.

"I don't know whose fault it is," he went on: "I don't know whether he still really cares for you in spite of his weak peregrinations to other shrines; but you still care for him. And it's up to you to make him what he can be—the average husband. There are only two kinds, Rosalie, the average and the bad."

She looked straight into his eyes, but the deep, mantling colour belied her audacity.

"Do you know," she said, "that we haven't—lived together for two years?"

"I don't want to know such things," he said gently.

"Well, you do know now. I—am—very much alone. You see I have already become capable of saying anything—and of doing it, too."

There came a reckless glimmer into her eyes; she set her teeth—a trick of hers; the fresh lips parted slightly under her rapid breathing.

"Do you think," she said unevenly, "that I'm going on all my life like this—without anything more than the passing friendship of men to balance the example he sets me?"

"No, I think something is bound to happen, Rosalie. May I suggest what ought to happen?"

She nodded thoughtfully; only the quiver of her lower lip betrayed the tension of self-control.

"Take him back," he said.

"I no longer care for him."

"You are mistaken."

After a moment she said: "I don't think so; truly I don't. All consideration for him has died in me. His conduct doesn't matter—doesn't hurt me any more——"

"Yes, it does. He's just a plain ass—an average ass—ownerless, and, like all asses, convinced that he can take care of himself. Go and put the halter on him again."

"Go—and—what do you mean?"

"Tether him. You did once. It's up to you; it's usually up to a woman when a man wanders untethered. What one woman, or a dozen, can do with a man his wife can do in the same fashion! What won him in the beginning always holds good until he thinks he has won you. Then the average man flourishes his heels. He is doing it. What won him was not you alone, or love, alone; it was his uncertainty of both that fascinated him. That's what charms him in others; uncertainty. Many men are that way. It's a sporting streak in us. If you care for him now—if you could ever care for him, take him as you took him first.... Do you want him again?"

She stood leaning against the door, looking down. Much of her colour had died out.

"I don't know," she said.

"I do."

"Well—do I?"

"Yes."

"You think so? Why?"

"Because he's adrift, too. And he's rather weak, rather handsome, easily influenced—unjust, selfish, vain, wayward—just the average husband. And every wife ought to be able to manage these lords of creation, and keep them out of harm.... And keep them in love, Rosalie. And the way to do it is the way you did it first.... Try it." He kissed her gaily, thinking he owed that much to himself.

And through the door which had swung gently ajar, Geraldine Seagrave saw them, and Rosalie saw her.

For a moment the girl halted, pale and rigid, and her heart seemed to cease its beating; then, as she passed with averted head, Rosalie caught Duane's wrists in her jewelled grasp and released herself with a wrench.

"You've given me enough to think over," she said. "If you want me to love you, stay—and close that door—and we'll see what happens. If you don't—you had better go at once, Duane. And leave my door open—to see what else fate will send me." She clasped her hands behind her back, laughing nervously.

"It's like the old child's game—'open your mouth and close your eyes and see what God will send you?'—usually something not at all resembling the awaited bonbon.... Good-bye, my altruistic friend—and thank you for your XXth Century advice, and your Louis XVI assistance."

"Good-bye," he returned smilingly, and sauntered back toward his room where his own untried finery awaited him.

Ahead, far down the corridor, he caught sight of Geraldine, and called to her, but perhaps she did not hear him for he had to put on considerable speed to overtake her.

"In these last few days," he said laughingly, "I seldom catch a glimpse of you except when you are vanishing into doorways or down corridors."

She said nothing, did not even turn her head or halt; and, keeping pace with her, he chatted on amiably about nothing in particular until she stopped abruptly and looked at him.

"I am in a hurry. What is it you want, Duane?"

"Why—nothing," he said in surprise.

"That is less than you ask of—others." And she turned to continue her way.

"Is there anything wrong, Geraldine?" he asked, detaining her.

"Is there?" she replied, shaking off his hand from her arm.

"Not as far as I'm concerned."

"Can't you even tell the truth?" she asked with a desperate attempt to laugh.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Evidently something has gone all wrong——"

"Several things, my solicitous friend; I for one, you for another. Count the rest for yourself."

"What has happened to you, Geraldine?"

"What has always threatened."

"Will you tell me?"

"No, I will not. So don't try to look concerned and interested in a matter that regards me alone."

"But what is it that has always threatened you?" he insisted gently, coming nearer—too near to suit her, for she backed away toward the high latticed window through which the sun poured over the geraniums on the sill. There was a seat under it. Suddenly her knees threatened to give way under her; she swayed slightly as she seated herself; a wave of angry pain swept through her setting lids and lips trembling.

"Now I want you to tell me what it is that you believe has always threatened you."

"Do you think I'd tell you?" she managed to say. Then her self-possession returned in a flash of exasperation, but she controlled that, too, and laughed defiantly, confronting him with pretty, insolent face uptilted.

"What do you want to know about me? That I'm in the way of being ultimately damned like all the rest of you?" she said. "Well, I am. I'm taking chances. Some people take their chances in one way—like you and Rosalie; some take them in another—as I do.... Once I was afraid to take any; now I'm not. Who was it said that self-control is only immorality afraid?"

"Will you tell me what is worrying you?" he persisted.

"No, but I'll tell you what annoys me if you like."

"What?"

"Fear of notoriety."

"Notoriety?"

"Certainly—not for myself—for my house."

"Is anybody likely to make it notorious?" he demanded, colouring up.

"Ask yourself.... I haven't the slightest interest in your personal conduct"—there was a catch in her voice—"except when it threatens to besmirch my own home."

The painful colour gathered and settled under his cheek-bones.

"Do you wish me to leave?"

"Yes, I do. But you can't without others knowing how and why."

"Oh, yes, I can——"

"You are mistaken. I tell you others will know. Some do know already. And I don't propose to figure with a flaming sword. Kindly remain in your Eden until it's time to leave—with Eve."

"Just as you wish," he said, smiling; and that infuriated her.

"It ought to be as I wish! That much is due me, I think. Have you anything further to ask, or is your curiosity satisfied?"

"Not yet. You say that you think something threatens you? What is it?"

"Not what threatens you," she said in contempt.

"That is no answer."

"It is enough for you to know."

He looked her hard in the eyes. "Perhaps," he said in a low voice, "I know more about you than you imagine I do, Geraldine—since last April."

She felt the blood leave her face, the tension crisping her muscles; she sat up very straight and slender among the cushions and defied him.

"What do you—think you know?" she tried to sneer, but her voice shook and failed.

He said: "I'll tell you. For one thing, you're playing fast and loose with Dysart. He's a safe enough proposition—but what is that sort of thing going to arouse in you?"

"What do you mean?" Her voice cleared with an immense relief. He noted it.

"It's making you tolerant," he said quietly, "familiar with subtleties, contemptuous of standards. It's rubbing the bloom off you. You let a man who is married come too close to you—you betray enough curiosity concerning him to do it. A drifting woman does that sort of thing, but why do you cut your cables? Good Lord, Geraldine, it's a fool business—permitting a man an intimacy——"

"More harmless than his wife permits you!" she retorted.

"That is not true."

"You are supposed to lie about such things, aren't you?" she said, reddening to the temples. "Oh, I am learning your rotten code, you see—the code of all these amiable people about me. You've done your part to instruct me that promiscuous caresses are men's distraction from ennui; Rosalie evidently is in sympathy with that form of amusement—many men and women among whom I live in town seem to be quite as casual as you are.... I did have standards once, scarcely knowing what they meant; I clung to them out of instinct. And when I went out into the world I found nobody paying any attention to them."

"You are wrong."

"No, I'm not. I go among people and see every standard I set up, ignored. I go to the theatre and see plays that embody everything I supposed was unthinkable, let alone unutterable. But the actors utter everything, and the audience thinks everything—and sometimes laughs. I can't do that—yet. But I'm progressing."

"Geraldine——"

"Wait!... My friends have taught me a great deal during this last year—by word, precept, and example. Things I held in horror nobody notices enough to condone. Take treachery, for example. The marital variety is all around me. Who cares, or is even curious after an hour's gossip has made it stale news? A divorce here, a divorce there—some slight curiosity to see who the victims may marry next time—that curiosity satisfied—and so is everybody. And they go back to their business of money-getting and money-spending—and that's what my friends have taught me. Can you wonder that my familiarity with it all breeds contempt enough to seek almost any amusement in sheer desperation—as you do?"

"I have only one amusement," he said.

"What?"

"Painting."

"And your model," she nodded with a short laugh. "Don't forget her. Your pretences are becoming tiresome, Duane. Your pretty model, Mrs. Dysart, poses less than you do."

Another wave of heart-sickness and anger swept over her; she felt the tears burning close to her lids and turned sharply on him:

"It's all rotten, I tell you—the whole personnel and routine—these people, and their petty vices and their idleness and their money! I—I do want to keep myself above it—clean of it—but what am I to do? One can't live without friends. If I don't gamble I'm left alone; if I don't flirt I'm isolated. If one stands aloof from everything one's friends go elsewhere. What can I do?"

"Make decent friends. I'm going to."

He bent forward and struck his knee with his closed fist.

"I'm going to," he repeated. "I've waited as long as I can for you to stand by me. I could have even remained among these harmless simians if you had cared for me. You're all the friend I need. But you've become one of them. It isn't in you to take an intelligent interest in me, or in what I care for. I've stood this sort of existence long enough. Now I'm all through with it."

She stared. Anger, astonishment, exasperation moved her in turn. Bitterness unlocked her lips.

"Are you expecting to take Mrs. Dysart with you to your intellectual solitude?"

"I would if I—if we cared for each other," he said, calmly seating himself.

She said, revolted: "Can't you even admit that you are in love with her? Must I confess that I could not avoid seeing you with her in her own room—half an hour since? Will that wring the truth out of you?"

"Oh, is that what you mean?" he said wearily. "I believe the door was open.... Well, Geraldine, whatever you saw won't harm anybody. So come to your own conclusions.... But I wish you were out of all this—with your fine insight and your clear intelligence, and your sweetness—oh, the chances for happiness you and I might have had!"

"A slim chance with you!" she said.

"Every chance; perhaps the only chance we'll ever have. And we've missed it."

"We've missed nothing"—a sudden and curious tremor set her heart and pulses beating heavily—"I tell you, Duane, it doesn't matter whom people of our sort marry because we'll always sicken of our bargain. What chance for happiness would I run with such a man as you? Or you with a girl like me?"

She lay back among the cushions, with a tired little laugh. "We are like the others of our rotten sort, only less aged, less experienced. But we have, each of us, our own heritage, our own secret depravity." She hesitated, reddening, caught his eye, stammered her sentence to a finish and flinched, crimsoning to the roots of her hair.

He stood up, paced the room for a few moments, came and stood beside her.

"Once," he said very low, "you admitted that you dare go anywhere with me. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"Those are your rooms, I believe," pointing to a closed door far down the south corridor.

"Yes."

"Take me there now."

"I—cannot do that——"

"Yes, you can. You must."

"Now?—Duane."

"Yes, now—now! I tell you our time is now if it ever is to be at all. Don't waste words."

"What do you want to say to me that cannot be said here?" she asked in consternation.

He made no answer, but she found herself on her feet and moving slowly along beside him, his hand just touching her arm as guide.

"What is it, Duane?" she asked fearfully, as she laid her hand on the knob and turned to look at his altered face.

He made no answer. She hesitated, shivered, opened the door, hesitated again, slowly crossed the threshold, turned and admitted him.

The western sun flooded the silent chamber of rose and gray; a breeze moved the curtains, noiselessly; the scent of flowers freshened the silence.

There was a divan piled with silken cushions; he placed several for her; she stood irresolute for a moment, then, with a swift, unquiet side glance at him, seated herself.

"What is it?" she asked, looking up, her face beginning to reflect the grave concern in his.

"I want you to marry me, Geraldine."

"Is—is that what——"

"Partly. I want you to love me, too. But I'll attend to that if you'll marry me—I'll guarantee that. I—I will guarantee—more than that."

She was still looking up, searching his sombre face. She saw the muscles tighten along the jaw; saw the grave lines deepening. A sort of bewildered fear possessed her.

"I—am not in love with you, Duane." She added hastily, "I don't trust you either. How could I——"

"Yes, you do trust me."

"After what you have done to Rosalie——"

"You know that all is square there. Say so!"

She gazed at the floor, convinced, but not answering.

"Do you believe I love you?"

She shook her head, eyes still on the floor.

"Tell me the truth! Look at me!"

She said with an effort: "You think you care for me.... You believe you do, I suppose——"

"And you believe it, too! Give me my chance—take your own!"

"My chance?"—with a flash of anger.

"Yes; take it, and give me mine. I tell you, Geraldine, we are going to need each other desperately some day. I need you now—to-morrow you'll need me more; and the day after, and after that in perilous days to follow our need will be the greater for these hours wasted—can't you understand by this time that we've nothing to hold us steady through the sort of life we're born to except—each other——"

His voice suddenly broke; he dropped down on the couch beside her, imprisoning her clasped hands on her knees. His emotion, the break in his voice, excited them both.

"Are you trying to frighten me and take me by storm?" she demanded, forcing a smile. "What is the matter, Duane? What do you mean by peril?... You are scaring me——"

"Little Geraldine—my little comrade! Can't you understand? It isn't only my selfish desire for you—it isn't all for myself!—I care more for you than that. I love you more deeply than a mere lover! Must I say more to you? Must I even hurt you? Must I tell you what I know—of you?"

"W-what?" she asked, startled.

He looked at her miserably. In his eyes she read a meaning that terrified her.

"Duane—I don't—understand," she faltered.

"Yes you do. Let's face it now!"

"F-face what?" Her voice was only a whisper.

"I can tell you if you'll love me. Will you?"

"I don't understand," she repeated in white-lipped distress. "Why do you look at me so strangely? And you tell me that I—know.... What is it that I know? Couldn't you tell me? I am—" Her voice failed.

"Dear—do you remember—once—last April that you were—ill?... And awoke to find yourself on your own bed?"

"Duane!" It was a cry of terror.

"Dearest! Dearest! Do you think I have not known—since then—what has troubled you—here——"

She stared at him in crimsoned horror for an instant, then with a dry sob, bowed her head and covered her face with desperate hands. For a moment her whole body quivered, then she collapsed. On his knees beside her he bent and touched with trembling lips her arms, her knees, the slim ankles desperately interlocked, the tips of her white shoes.

"Dearest," he whispered brokenly, "I know—I know—believe me. I have fought through worse, and won out. You said once that something had died out in me—while I was abroad. It did not die of itself, dear. But it left its mark.... You say self-control is only depravity afraid.... That is true; but I have made my depravity fear me. I can do what I please with it now; I can tempt it, laugh at it, silence it. But it cost me something to make a slave of it—what you saw in my face is the claw-mark it left fighting me to the death."

Very straight on his knees beside her he bent again, pressing her rigid knees with his lips.

"I need you, Geraldine—I need all that is best in you; you must love me—take me as an ally, dear, against all that is worst in you. I'll love you so confidently that we'll kill it—you and I together—my strength and yours, my bitter and deep understanding and your own sweet contempt for weakness wherever it may be, even in yourself."

He touched her; and she shuddered under the light caress, still bent almost double, and covering her face with both hands. He bent over her, one knee on the divan.

"Let's pull ourselves together and talk sense, Geraldine," he said with an effort at lightness.

"Don't you remember that bully little girl who swung her fists in single combat and uppercut her brother and me whenever her sense of fairness was outraged? The time has come when you, who were so fair to others, are going to be fair to yourself by marrying me——"

She dropped both hands and stared at him out of wide, tear-wet eyes.

"Fair to myself—at your expense, Duane?"

"What do you mean? I love you."

"Am I to let you—you marry me—knowing—what you know? Is that what you call my sense of fairness?" And, as he attempted to speak:

"Oh, I have thought about it already!—I must have been conscious that this would happen some day—that—that I was capable of caring for you—and it alarmed me——"

"Are you capable of loving me?"

"Duane, you must not ask me that!"

"Tell me!"

But she pushed him back, and they faced each other, her hands remaining on his shoulders. She strove piteously to endure his gaze, flinched, strove to push him from her again—but the slender hands lay limply against him. So they remained, her hands at intervals nervously tightening and relaxing on his shoulders, her tearful breath coming faster, the dark eyes closing, opening, turning from him, toward him, searching, now in his soul, now in her own, her self-command slipping from her.

"It is cowardly in me—if I do it," she said in the ghost of a voice.

"Do what?"

"Let you risk—what I m-might become."

"You little saint!"

"Some saints were depraved at first—weren't they?" she said without a smile. "Oh, Duane, Duane, to think I could ever be here speaking to you about—about the horror that has happened to me—looking into your face and giving up my dreadful secret to you—laying my very soul naked before you! How can I look at you——"

"Because I love you. Now give me the right to your lips and heart!"

There was a long silence. Then she tried to smile.

"My—my lips? I—thought you took such things—lightly——"

She hesitated, glanced up at him, then began to tremble.

"Duane—if you are in earnest about our—about an engagement—promise me that I may be released if I—think best——"

"Why?"

"I—I might fail——"

"The more need of me. But you can't fail——"

"Yes, but if I should, dear. Will you release me? I cannot—I will not engage myself to you—unless you promise to let me go if I think it best. You know what my word means. Give it back to me if matters go wrong with me. Will you?"

"But I am going to marry you now!" he said with a short, excited laugh.

"Now!" she repeated, appalled.

"Certainly, to make sure of you. We don't need a license in this State. There's a parson at West Gate Village.... I intend to make sure of you now. You can keep it a secret if you like. When you return to town we can have everything en regle—engagement announced, cards, church wedding, and all that. Meanwhile I'm going to be sure of you."

"W-when?"

"This afternoon."

His excitement thrilled her; a vivid colour surged over neck and brow.

"Duane, I did not dream that you cared so much, so truly—Oh, I—I do love you then!—I love you, Duane! I love you!"

He drew her suddenly into his arms, close, closer; she lifted her face; he kissed her; and she gave him her heart with a sob.

"You will wait for m-me, won't you?" she stammered, striving to keep her reason through the delicious tumult that swept her senses. "Before I m-marry you I must be quite certain that you take no risk——"

She looked up into his steady eyes; a passion of tenderness overwhelmed her, and her locked arms tightened around his neck.

"Oh," she whispered, "you are the boy I loved so long, so long ago—my comrade Duane—my own little boy! How was I to know I loved you this way, too? How could I understand!"

Already the glamour of the past was transfiguring the man for her, changing him back into the lad she had ruled so long ago, glorifying him—drawing them together into that golden age where her ears already caught the far cries and laughter of the past.

Now, her arms around him, she looked at him and looked at him as though she had not set eyes on him since then.

"Of course, I love you," she said impatiently, as though surprised and hurt that he or she had ever doubted it. "You always were mine; you are mine! Nobody else could ever have had you—no matter what you did—or what I did.... And nobody except you could ever, ever have had me. That is perfectly plain now.... Oh, you—you darling"—she murmured, drawing his face against hers. Tears sprang to her brown eyes; her mouth quivered.

"You will love me, won't you? Because I'm going quite mad about you, Duane.... I don't think I know just what I'm saying—or what I'm doing."

She drew him closer; he caught her, crushing her in his arms, and she yielded, clung to him for a moment, drew back in flushed resistance, still bewildered by her own passion. Then, into her eyes came that divine beauty which comes but once on earth—innocence awakened; and the white lids drooped a little, and the mouth quivered, surrendering with a sigh.

* * * * *

"You never have, never could love any other man? Say it. I know it, but—say it, sweetheart!"

"Only you, Duane."

"Are you happy?"

"I am in heaven."

She closed her eyes—opening them almost immediately and passing one hand across his face as though afraid he might have vanished.

"You are there yet," she murmured with a faint smile.

"So are you," he whispered, laughing—"my little dream girl—my little brown-eyed, brown-haired, long-legged, swift-running, hard-hitting——"

"Oh, do you remember that dreadful blow I gave you when we were sparring in the library? Did it hurt you, my darling—I was sure it did, but you never would admit it. Tell me now," she coaxed, adorable in her penitence.

"Well—yes, it did." He laughed under his breath—"I don't mind telling you now that it fractured the bridge of my nose."

"What!"—in horror. "That perfectly delicious straight nose of yours!"

"Oh, I had it fixed," he said, laughing. "If you deal me no more vital blows than that I'll never mind——"

"I—deal you a—a blow, Duane! I!"

"For instance, by not marrying me right away——"

"Dear—I can't."

The smile had died out in her eyes and on her lips.

"You know I can't, don't you?" she said tenderly. "You know I've got to be fair to you." Her face grew graver. "Dear—when I stop and try to think—it dismays me to understand how much in love with you I am.... Because it is too soon.... It would be safer to wait before I start to love you—this way. There is a cowardly streak in me—a weak streak——"

"What blessed nonsense you do talk, don't you?"

"No, dear."

She moved slightly toward him, settling close, as though within the circle of his arms lay some occult protection.

For a while she lay very close to him, her pale face pressed against his shoulder, brown eyes remote. Neither spoke. After a long time she laid her hands on his arms, gently disengaging them, and, freeing herself, sprang to her feet. A new, lithe and lovely dignity seemed to possess her—an exquisite, graceful, indefinable something which lent a hint of splendour to her as she turned and looked down at him.

Then, mischievously tender, she stooped and touched her childish mouth to his—her cheek, her throat, her hair, her lids, her hands, in turn all brushed his lips with fragrance—the very ghost of contact, the exquisite mockery of caress.

"If you don't go at once," she murmured, "I'll never let you go at all. Wait—let me see if anybody is in the corridor——"

She opened the door and looked out.

"Not a soul," she whispered, "our reputations are still intact. Good-bye—I'll put on a fresh gown and meet you in ten minutes!... Where? Oh, anywhere—anywhere, Duane. The Lake. Oh, that is too far away! Wait here on the stairs for me—that isn't so far away—just sit on the stairs until I come. Do you promise? Truly? Oh, you angel boy!... Yes—but only one more, then—to be quite sure that you won't forget to wait on the stairs for me...."



CHAPTER VIII

AN AFTERGLOW

Deliciously weary, every fibre in her throbbing with physical fatigue, she had nevertheless found it impossible to sleep.

The vivid memory of Duane holding her in his arms, while she gave her heart to him with her lips, left her tremulous and confused by emotions of which she yet knew little.

Toward dawn a fever of unrest drove her from her hot, crushed pillows to the cool of the open casements. The morning was dark and very still; no breeze stirred; a few big, widely scattered stars watched her. For a long while she stood there trying to quiet the rapid pulse and fast breathing; and at length, with an excited little laugh, she sank down among the cushions on the window-seat and lay back very still, her head, with its glossy, disordered hair, cradled in her arms.

"Is this love?" she said to herself. "Is this what it is doing to me? Am I never again going to sleep?"

But she could not lie still; her restless hands began groping about in the darkness, and presently the fire from a cigarette glimmered red.

She remained quiet for a few moments, elbow among the pillows, cheek on hand, watching the misty spirals float through the open window. After a while she sat up nervously and tossed the cigarette from her. Like a falling star the spark whirled earthward in a wide curve, glowed for a few seconds on the lawn below, and slowly died out.

Then an inexplicable thing occurred. Unthinkingly she had turned over and extended her arm, searching in the darkness behind her. There came a tinkle, a vague violet perfume, and the starlight fell on her clustering hair and throat as she lifted and drained the brimming glass.