lers and that sort of thing, but that can't go on for ever, you
know, can it?"

"Can't it?" she murmured, a little dazed.

"I have a habit," he confided, "of making up my mind quickly, and when I
decide about a thing, I am rather hard to turn. Well, I made up my mind
about you the first moment we met."

"About me?" she repeated.

"About you."

She turned and looked at him almost wonderingly. He was very big and
very confident; good to look upon, less because of his actual good looks
than because of a certain honesty and tenacity of purpose in his
expression; a strength of jaw, modified and rendered even pleasant by
the kindness and humour of his clear grey eyes. He returned her gaze
without embarrassment and he wondered less than ever at finding himself
there. Her complexion in this clear light seemed more beautiful than
ever. Her rich golden-brown hair was waved becomingly over her forehead.
Her eyebrows were silky and delicately straight, her mouth delightful.
Her figure was girlish, but unusually dignified for her years.

"You know," he said suddenly, "you look to me just like one of those
beautiful plants you have in the conservatory there, just as though
you'd stepped out of your little glass home and blossomed right here. I
am almost afraid of you."

She laughed outright this time--a low, musical laugh which had in it
something of foreign intonation.

"Well, really," she exclaimed, "I had not noticed your fear! I was just
thinking that you were quite the boldest young man I have ever met."

"Come, that's something!" he declared. "Couldn't we sit down somewhere
in these wonderful gardens of yours and talk?"

She shook her head.

"But have I not told you already," she protested, "that I do not receive
callers? Neither does my father. Really, your coming here is quite
unwarrantable. If he should return at this moment and find you here, he
would be very angry indeed. I am afraid that he would even be rude, and
I, too, should suffer for having allowed you to talk with me."

"Let's hope that he doesn't return just yet, then," Richard observed,
smiling easily. "I am very good-tempered as a rule, but I do not like
people to be rude to me."

"Fortunately, he cannot return for at least an hour--" she began.

"Then we'll sit down on that terrace, if you please, for just a quarter
of that time," he begged.

She opened her lips and closed them again. He was certainly a very
stubborn young man!

"Well," she