sure of himself just then. He sat down opposite her and,
smiling, whimsically inquired:

"Now, where did we leave off?"

At first she did not understand.

He enlightened her. "I refer to that Arabian Nights entertainment in New
York. Where did we leave off that interesting discussion?"

She smiled brightly. "We shall take up the thread of that discourse with
the coffee."

"Why not countermand the order for dinner? I am not hungry."

"But I am," she replied. She was wholly herself now. The tact with which
he began his address disembarrassed her. For two days, since she
despatched the telegram, she had lived in a kind of ecstatic terror; she
had even regretted the message, once it was beyond recall. "I am human
enough to be hungry, sometimes." She summoned the waiter.

The dinner was excellent, but Hillard scarcely knew what this or that
plate was. All his hunger lay in his eyes. Besides, he did not want to
discuss generalities during the intermittent invasions of the waiter,
who never knew how many times he stood in danger of being hurled over
into the flowering beds of lavender which banked the path of the second
terrace. And when he brought the coffee and lingered for further orders,
it was Hillard who dismissed him, rather curtly.

"Now! Let me see," he said musingly. "We had agreed that it would be
best never to meet again, that to keep the memory of that night fresh in
our minds, a souvenir for old age, it were wisest to part then. Well, we
can keep the memory of it for our old age; it will be a little secret
between us, and we shall talk it over on just such nights as this."

"Isn't this oak the most beautiful you have ever seen?" she remarked,
looking up at the great leafy arms above her head.

"The most beautiful in all the world;" but he was not looking at the
oak.

"Think of it! It's many centuries old. Empires and kingdoms have risen
and vanished. It was here when Michelangelo and Raphael and Titian were
ragamuffins in the populous streets; it was leafing when Petrarch
indited pages to his Laura; when Dante gazed melancholily upon his
Beatrice--Oh, what a little time we have!"

"Then let us make the most of it," he said.

He reached for her hand, which lay upon the cover; but, without apparent
notice of his movement, she drew back her hand.

"I have waited patiently for weeks."

She faced him with an enigmatical smile, lighted a match, blew it out,
and drew a line across the center of the tab