le of strawberries.

"No, thanks," she said, with her musical drawl. "I know what that
means. You drift into the middle of the lake or the river, the wind
drops, and you sit in a scorching sun and get a headache. Please leave
me out. I shall stick to my original proposal. Perhaps, if you don't
drown anyone this time, I may venture with you another day."

She leant back and smiled at them under her lids, as the discussion
flowed and ebbed round her, with an air of placid contempt and wonder
at their excitement; and presently, murmuring something to Lady
Clansford, who, as chaperone and deputy hostess was trying to coax them
into some decision, she rose and went out to the terrace.

There, lying back in a deck-chair, in a corner screened from any
possible draught by the glass verandah, was Mr. Howard with one of Sir
Stephen's priceless Havanas between his lips, a French novel in his
hand, and a morning paper across his knees. He rose as she approached,
and checking a sigh of resignation, offered her his chair.

"Oh, no," she said, with a smile which showed that she knew what the
effort of politeness cost him. "You'd hate me if I took your chair, I
know; and though, of course, I don't in the least care whether you hate
me or not, I shouldn't like putting you to the trouble of so exhaustive
an emotion."

Howard smiled at her with frank admiration.

"Let's compromise it," he said. "I'll drag that chair up here--it's out
of the sun, you know--so, and arrange these cushions so, and put up the
end for your feet so, and--how is that, Miss Falconer?"

"Thanks," she murmured, sinking into the soft nest he had made.

"Do you object to my cigar? Say so, if you do, and--"

"You'll go off to some other nook," she put in. "No, I like it."

His eye shone with keen appreciation: this girl was not only a
beauty--which is almost common nowadays--but witty, which is rare.

"Thanks! Would you like the paper? Don't hesitate if you would; I'm not
reading it; I never do. I keep it there so that I can put it over my
face if I feel like sleeping--which I generally do."

She declined the paper with a gesture of her white hand. "No, I'd
rather talk; which means that you are to talk and I'm to listen: will
it exhaust you too much to tell me where the rest of the people are? I
left a party in the breakfast-room squabbling over the problem how to
kill time; but where are the others? My father, for instance?"

"He is in the library with B