was delicate white and pink. Now it
was high, and Cartwright knew she was angry. She wore boating clothes
and had obviously meant to go on the lake. The trouble was, her
companion had not arrived.

"Hallo!" said Cartwright. "Are you waiting for somebody?"

Barbara advanced and sat down on a rocky ledge.

"No," she said, "I'm not waiting _now_."

Cartwright smiled. He knew Barbara's temper, and his line was to keep
her resentment warm.

"You mean, you have given him up and won't go if he does arrive? Well,
when a young man doesn't keep his appointment, it's the proper plan."

She blushed, but tried to smile. "I don't know if you're clever or not
just now, although you sometimes do see things the others miss. I really
was a little annoyed."

"I've lived a long time," said Cartwright. "However, perhaps it's
important I haven't forgotten I was young. I think your brother and
sister never were very young. They were soberer than me when I knew them
first."

"Mortimer _is_ a stick," Barbara agreed. "He and Grace have a calm
superiority that makes one savage now and then. I like human people, who
sometimes let themselves go--"

She stopped, and Cartwright noted her wandering glance that searched the
beach and the path to the hotel. He knew whom she expected, and thought
it would give her some satisfaction to quarrel with the fellow.
Cartwright did not mean to soothe her.

"Mr. Shillito ought to have sent his apologies when he found he could
not come," he said.

Barbara's glance got fixed, and Cartwright knew he had blundered.

"Oh!" she said, "now I begin to see! Mother kept me by her all the
evening; but mother's not very clever and Mortimer's too fastidious to
meddle, unless he gets a dignified part. Of course, the plot was yours!"

Cartwright nodded. Sometimes he used tact, but he was sometimes brutally
frank.

"You had better try to console yourself with the Wheeler boys; they're
straight young fellows. Shillito is gone. He went by the car this
morning and it's unlikely he'll come back."

"You sent him off?" said Barbara, and her eyes sparkled. "Well, I'm not
a child and you're not my father really. Why did you meddle?"

"For one thing, he's not your sort. Then I'm a meddlesome old fellow and
rather fond of you. To see you entangled by a man like Shillito would
hurt. Let him go. If you want to try your powers, you'll find a number
of honest young fellows on whom you can experiment. The boys one meets
i