im first!" murmured Olga.

She passed Max with a touch of the hand and a fleeting smile, and was
gone.

Nick's plaintive lament came to an abrupt conclusion two seconds later,
and Max turned back into the room with his hands thrust deep in his
pockets, and one side of his mouth cocked at an angle expressive of
extreme satisfaction. He had dared a good deal that day, far more than
Olga vaguely dreamed, and events had proved him more than justified.

CHAPTER X

A TALK IN THE OPEN

Noel dined with the Musgraves that night. His mood was hilarious
throughout, but he seemed for some reason unwilling to discuss the
adventure he had shared with Olga in the temple, and of their rescuer he
scarcely spoke at all. He seemed in fact to have practically dismissed
the whole matter from his mind, and when he bade them farewell at the
end of the evening Daisy acknowledged to her husband that she was
disappointed.

"I felt so sure he had begun to care for Olga," she said. "He doesn't
often miss his opportunities, that boy."

"Perhaps Olga doesn't chance to care for him," suggested Will, with his
arm round his wife's waist. "That does happen sometimes, you know."

She smiled, her cheek against his shoulder. "I can't imagine any girl
resisting Noel's charms if he were the first comer--as I fancy he must
be," she said.

"I wonder if he is," said Will. "She told me the other night she had
never been in love, but she seemed to know so much about the disease
that I rather doubted her veracity."

"Fancy your living to call it a disease!" said Daisy, with a faint sigh.

He stooped and kissed her. "Oh, I'm not a cynic, my dear," he said.
"Shall we call it an incurable affection of the heart instead?"

"That's almost as bad," she protested.

"I said incurable," pleaded Will. "I ought to know, for I fell a victim
to it long ago."

She laughed softly against his shoulder. "Well, if you will have it so,
it's very infectious, you know. And I am a victim too."

His arm tightened. "Mine was always a hopeless case, Daisy," he murmured
half wistfully.

She turned her lips up to his. "When it attacks old folks--like you and
me, dear--it always is," she said.

He kissed her again, lingeringly and in silence. There had been a time
of which neither ever spoke when Will's love for his wife had been to
her a thing of little value. He had not been the first comer. That time
had passed long since, and with it the last of their youth.