her mother used to sit and read, Guida on the three-legged
stool, her mother on the low, wide seat covered with ferns. This spot
Guida used to "flourish" with flowers. The vines, too, crept through the
rough latticework, and all together made the place a bower, secluded and
serene. The water of the little stream outside the hedge made music too.

Philip placed himself on the bench beneath the appletree. What a change
was all this, he thought to himself, from the staring hot stones of
Malta, the squalor of Constantinople, the frigid cliffs of Spitzbergen,
the noisome tropical forests of the Indies! This was Arcady. It was
peace, it was content. His life was sure to be varied and perhaps
stormy--here would be the true change, the spirit of all this. Of course
he would have two sides to his life like most men: that lived before the
world, and that of the home. He would have the fight for fame. He would
have to use, not duplicity, but diplomacy, to play a kind of game;
but this other side to his life, the side of love and home, should be
simple, direct--all genuine and strong and true. In this way he would
have a wonderful career.

He heard Guida's footstep now, and standing up he parted the apple
boughs for her entrance. She was dressed all in white, without a touch
of colour save in the wild rose at her throat and the pretty red shoes
with the broad buckles which the Chevalier had given her. Her face, too,
had colour--the soft, warm tint of the peach-blossom--and her auburn
hair was like an aureole.

Philip's eyes gleamed. He stretched out both his hands in greeting and
tenderness. "Guida--sweetheart!" he said.

She laughed up at him mischievously, and put her hands behind her back.

"Ma fe, you are so very forward," she said, seating herself on the
bench. "And you must not call me Guida, and you've no right to call me
sweetheart."

"I know I've no right to call you anything, but to myself I always call
you Guida, and sweetheart too, and I've liked to think that you would
care to know my thoughts," he answered.

"Yes, I wish I knew your thoughts," she responded, looking up at him
intently; "I should like to know every thought in your mind.... Do you
know--you don't mind my saying just what I think?--I find myself feeling
that there's something in you that I never touch; I mean, that a friend
ought to touch, if it's a real friendship. You appear to be so frank,
and I know you are frank and good and true, and yet I