or, with
every appearance of disapproval.

"Oh, I don't know," she heard Clay say, doubtfully; "I don't have to go
just yet, do I? May I not stay here a little while?"

Hope stood and looked at him in some perplexity.

"Why, yes," she answered, wonderingly. "But don't you want to go back?
You came in a great hurry. And won't Alice want her fan?"

"Oh, she has it by this time. I told Stuart to find it. She left it
in the carriage, and the carriage is waiting at the end of the plaza."

"Then why did you come?" asked Hope, with rising suspicion.

"Oh, I don't know," said Clay, helplessly. "I thought I'd just like a
ride in the moonlight. I hate balls and dances anyway, don't you? I
think you were very wise not to go."

Hope placed her hands on the back of the big arm-chair and looked
steadily at him as he stood where she could see his face in the
moonlight. "You came back," she said, "because they thought I was
crying, and they sent you to see. Is that it? Did Alice send you?"
she demanded.

Clay gave a gasp of consternation.

"You know that no one sent me," he said. "I thought they treated you
abominably, and I wanted to come and say so. That's all. And I wanted
to tell you that I missed you very much, and that your not coming had
spoiled the evening for me, and I came also because I preferred to talk
to you than to stay where I was. No one knows that I came to see you.
I said I was going to get the fan, and I told Stuart to find it after
I'd left. I just wanted to see you, that's all. But I will go back
again at once."

While he had been speaking Hope had lowered her eyes from his face and
had turned and looked out across the harbor. There was a strange,
happy tumult in her breast, and she was breathing so rapidly that she
was afraid he would notice it. She also felt an absurd inclination to
cry, and that frightened her. So she laughed and turned and looked up
into his face again. Clay saw the same look in her eyes that he had
seen there the day when she had congratulated him on his work at the
mines. He had seen it before in the eyes of other women and it
troubled him. Hope seated herself in the big chair, and Clay tossed
his cloak on the floor at her feet and sat down with his shoulders
against one of the pillars. He glanced up at her and found that the
look that had troubled him was gone, and that her eyes were now smiling
with excitement and pleasure.

"And did you bring me someth