pretend
he had sought solitude and would be duly surprised and pleased to
encounter his hostess. That he had no business in her private garden at
all without her invitation did not trouble him, things like that never
blocked his way; he had always been too welcome anywhere for such an
aspect even to have presented itself to him.

He played his part to perfection--reconnoitering as stealthily as when
he was stalking big game, until he perceived his quarry at the far end
among the lavender, giving orders to a gardener. He then turned in the
opposite direction, with great unconsciousness, to read the paper in
peace apparently being his only care! Here he paced the walk which cut
off her retreat from the gate, never glancing up. Sabine saw him of
course, and her heart began to beat--was it possible for a man to be so
good-looking or so utterly casual and devil-may-care! If she walked
toward the arbor turret he would be obliged to see her when she came to
the end, and then must come up and say good-morning. She picked up her
flower-basket and went that way, and with due surprise and pleasure,
Michael looked up from his paper at exactly the right moment and caught
sight of her.

He came toward her with just the proper amount of haste and raised his
straw hat in a gay good-morning.

"Isn't it a divine day," he said. "I had to come out and read the
papers--and the courtyard looked so dull and I did not know where else
to go--it is luck finding you here!"

"I always come into the garden in the morning when it is fine--I know
every plant and they are all my friends." Then to hide the pleasurable
excitement she was feeling, she bent down and picked a bit of lavender.

"I love that smell--won't you give me some, too?" he pleaded--and she
handed him a sprig which he fixed in his white coat. "You have made the
most enchanting place of this," he next told her. "Can't we go up and
sit in that summer-house while you tell me how you began? Henry said all
this was a ruin when you bought it some years ago--it is extraordinarily
clever of you."

Not the slightest embarrassment was in his manner, not the smallest look
of extra meaning in his eyes; he was simply a guest and she a hostess,
out together in the sunlight. A sense of unreality stole over Sabine. It
could not be all true--it was just some dream--a little more vivid, that
was all, than those which used to come to her of him sometimes
during--that year. She almost felt that s