or Robert Gloucester's money.

When the simple meal was over the two girls accompanied their guest into
the garden and sat beside him while he smoked. He neither offered
cigarettes to them, nor did they dream of providing them on their own
account. In the seventies it was still a rare and petrifying experience
to see a young girl smoke. The heroine of to-day is depicted to us as
making dainty play with her cigarette, or blowing smoke-rings with
unequalled grace. If the tips of her fingers are also stained yellow
with nicotine, and her clothes diffuse an atmosphere of a
smoking-carriage, these details are mercifully concealed. Jean and
Vanna at least had no hankerings after this masculine amusement.

Once and again as the time passed by, Robert looked fixedly at Vanna,
and grey eyes and brown exchanged an unspoken duel. "Leave us alone!"
entreated the brown. "You know; you understand! As you are wise be
merciful..."

"Not one step!" replied the grey. "Here I am, and here I stay. This is
my post, and I will stick to it."

"Be hanged to your post! You take too much upon yourself. Hand over
your post to me. Think of the difficulties, the contrivings, the
explainings I have had to undergo before getting away from town!"

"You had no business to leave..."

Vanna stuck obstinately to her guns, and at last Gloucester abandoned
his efforts. Another man would have been angry, impatient, would have
eyed her with cold antagonism, but Robert betrayed no irritation.
Rather did his brown eyes dilate with mischievous amusement as they met
her own.

"Please yourself," they seemed to say. "Do your little best. Erect
your puny barriers. A day or two more or less--what does it matter?
The end is sure."

The Cottage with its sloping garden was perched high on the side of one
of two outstanding cliffs which formed a deep, narrow bay. So far did
these chalk-walls jut out, so narrow was the space between, that the
view from the land had a confined, stage-like effect. The coast-line on
either side was completely hidden from sight, only the blue-green waters
stretched ahead, but these waters were one of the highways of a nation's
life, and o'er its surface all kinds of craft passed to and fro, in
endless panorama. When the tide was up, the great steamers could safely
take the inshore channel, while near at hand, and looking as if one
could, in nautical language, "throw a biscuit aboard," the smaller craft
plied thei