roachfully.

"Which is another way of saying that we have bored you until you are
sleepy?" she countered. "But you mustn't go yet--I want to talk to you."
And she wheeled a great wicker lounging-chair into a quiet corner, and
beat up the pillows in a near-by hammock, and bade him smoke his pipe if
he preferred it to the Castle 'Cadia cigars.

"I don't care to smoke anything if you will stay and talk to me," he
said, love quickly blotting out the disappointments foregone.

"For this one time you may have both--your pipe and me. Are you obliged
to go back to your camp to-night?"

"Yes, indeed. I ran away, as it was. Bromley will have it in for me for
dodging him this way."

"Is Mr. Bromley your boss?"

"He is something much better--he is my friend."

Her hammock was swung diagonally across the quiet corner, and she
arranged her pillows so that the shadow of a spreading potted palm came
between her eyes and the nearest electric globe.

"Am I not your friend, too?" she asked.

Jerry Blacklock and the younger Miss Cantrell were pacing a slow sentry
march up and down the open space in front of the lounging-chairs; and
Ballard waited until they had made the turn and were safely out of
ear-shot before he said: "There are times when I have to admit it,
reluctantly."

"How ridiculous!" she scoffed. "What is finer than true friendship?"

"Love," he said simply.

"Cousin Janet will hear you," she warned. Then she mocked him, as was
her custom. "Does that mean that you would like to have me tell you
about Mr. Wingfield?"

He played trumps again.

"Yes. When is it to be?"

"How crudely elemental you are to-night! Suppose you ask him?"

"He hasn't given me the right."

"Oh. And I have?"

"You are trying to give it to me, aren't you?"

She was swinging gently in the hammock, one daintily booted foot
touching the floor.

"You are so painfully direct at times," she complained. "It's like a
cold shower-bath; invigorating, but shivery. Do you think Mr. Wingfield
really cares anything for me? I don't. I think he regards me merely as
so much literary material. He lives from moment to moment in the hope of
discovering 'situations.'"

"Well,"--assentingly. "I am sure he has chosen a most promising
subject--and surroundings. The kingdom of Arcadia reeks with dramatic
possibilities, I should say."

Her face was still in the shadow of the branching palm, but the changed
tone betrayed her changed mood.

"I have ofte