after him in silence for a minute.
Suddenly Guida said to herself: "My handkerchief--why did he take my
handkerchief? He put it in his pocket again."

Philip turned on her impatiently.

"What was that adventurer saying to you, Guida? In the suite of the
Prince of Vaufontaine, my faith! What did he come here for?"

Guida looked at him in surprise. She scarcely grasped the significance
of the question. Before she had time to consider, he pressed it again,
and without hesitation she told him all that had happened--it was so
very little, of course--between Detricand and herself. She omitted
nothing save that Detricand had carried off the handkerchief, and she
could not have told, if she had been asked, why she did not speak of it.

Philip raged inwardly. He saw the meaning of the whole situation from
Detricand's stand-point, but he was wise enough from his own stand-point
to keep it to himself; and so both of them reserved something, she from
no motive that she knew, he from an ulterior one. He was angry too:
angry at Detricand, angry at Guida for her very innocence, and because
she had caught and held even the slight line of association Detricand
had thrown.

In any case, Detricand was going to-morrow, and to-day-to-day should
decide all between Guida and himself. Used to bold moves, in this affair
of love he was living up to his custom; and the encounter with Detricand
here added the last touch to his resolution, nerved him to follow his
strong impulse to set all upon one hazard. A month ago he had told Guida
that he loved her; to-day there should be a still more daring venture.
A thing not captured by a forlorn hope seemed not worth having. The girl
had seized his emotions from the first moment, and had held them. To him
she was the most original creature he had ever met, the most natural,
the most humorous of temper, the most sincere. She had no duplicity, no
guile, no arts.

He said to himself that he knew his own mind always. He believed in
inspirations, and he would back his knowledge, his inspiration, by an
irretrievable move. Yesterday had come an important message from his
commander. That had decided him. To-day Guida should hear a message
beyond all others in importance.

"Won't you come into the garden?" he said presently.

"A moment--a moment," she answered him lightly, for the frown had passed
from his face, and he was his old buoyant self again. "I'm to make an
end to this bashin of berries first,"