"

Her slim figure straightened as at a challenge, then became adorably
supple again; and she rested her elbows on the table's edge and took
her cheeks between her hands.

"Trouble?" she repeated, studying his face. "I don't know that word,
trouble. I don't admit such a word to the honour of my happy
vocabulary."

They both laughed a little.

She said, still looking at him, and at first speaking as though to
herself:

"Of course, you are that same, delightful Garry! My youthful American
accomplice!... Quite unspoiled, still, but very, very irresponsible
... like all painters--like all students. And the mischief which is in
me recognised the mischief in you, I suppose.... I _did_ surprise you
that night, didn't I?... And what a night! What a moon! And how we
danced there on the wet lawn until my skirts and slippers and
stockings were drenched with dew!... And how we laughed! Oh, that
full-hearted, full-throated laughter of ours! How wonderful that we
have lived to laugh like that! It is something to remember after
death. Just think of it!--you and I, absolute strangers, dancing every
dance there in the drenched grass to the music that came through the
open windows.... And do you remember how we hid in the flowering
bushes when my sister and the others came out to look for me? How they
called, 'Nihla! Nihla! Little devil, where are you?' Oh, it was
funny--funny! And to see _him_ come out on the lawn--do you remember?
He looked so fat and stupid and anxious and bad-tempered! And you and
I expiring with stifled laughter! And he, with his sash, his
decorations and his academic palms! He'd have shot us both, you
know...."

They were laughing unrestrainedly now at the memory of that impossible
night a year ago; and the girl seemed suddenly transformed into an
irresponsible gamine of eighteen. Her eyes grew brighter with mischief
and laughter--laughter, the greatest magician and doctor emeritus of
them all! The immortal restorer of youth and beauty.

Bluish shadows had gone from under her lower lashes; her eyes were
starry as a child's.

"Oh, Garry," she gasped, laying one slim hand across his on the
table-cloth, "it was one of those encounters--one of those heavenly
accidents that reconcile one to living.... I think the moon had made
me a perfect lunatic.... Because you don't yet know what I risked....
Garry!... It ruined me--ruined me utterly--our night together under
the June moon!"

"What!" he exclaimed, incre