ot look
around and meet. Once, when the sail was shifting and she knew the
eyes would, perforce, be concerned therewith, she stole a hurried
survey and saw a well-knit figure, quick in its movements, the muscles
playing beneath the flannel shirt. A discarded coat was upon the seat
near her.

"Down, please," came in cool, deliberate tones from the owner of the
coat and the gaze. The head of the girl went down, while the sail
swung about. The boat dipped, righted, then flew ahead, following the
curving shores of the lake.

The very air seemed flushing, the shimmering water had a thousand
tints, the shores slipping by breathed out odours of mould, and leaf
and vine. The western sky was triumphing, clouds of purple and of
crimson lifting one above another about a golden centre. And they in
the boat were speeding into the glory; the very rosiness of the air
seemed stealing down upon them and enveloping them. The sense of
avoirdupois, of gravitation, was lost; one felt winged, uplifted; it
was good all at once, it was good to live, to be.

The eyes and the gaze were on her again; she felt them and turned
suddenly and faced them. The look she met was deep and warm, but it
changed, holding hers, grew cool, enigmatical, impersonal. Did he not
know her then, or did he not want to know her?

This time tears of hurt and pride rushed to her eyes. He was
watching, but she could not get her eyes away, even with those hateful
tears welling.

The sail shifted, for no reason apparently. "Down, please," he
commanded. But as the boat dipped, shook itself, righted again, and
flew on through the rosy light, his head came up near hers and his
voice, in the old, boyish way, said: "Really?"

Sudden light shone through the tears in the girl's eyes. Molly would
have wrung her hands with an artist's anguish, this was the place for
coquetry!

"I thought you didn't want to know me and I was hurt," said Alexina.

"It was yours to know first," said Willy Leroy stoutly, but his eyes
were laughing.

"Oh," said Alexina, doubtfully; "why, yes; perhaps it was." And then
she laughed, too, gaily.

CHAPTER TWO

As Molly, Alexina and Mr. Henderson sat on the front gallery of the
hotel the next morning, they were joined by one Mr. Thompson Jonas, a
lawyer of Aden, who lived above his office and took his meals at the
hotel.

Mr. Jonas was small, wiry and muscular, of Georgia stock, with a
fierce little air and a fierce moustache, and qu