ied her hair into burnished silver.

"What bargain could you make that I would not agree to willingly?" he
asked.

"Perhaps some day I shall make one with you--or want to--that you will
not like," she said, "and then I shall remind you of this day and your
gallant speech."

"And I shall say then as I say now. I will make any bargain with you,
so long as it is a bargain which benefits us both."

"Ah, you are a Normand, you hedge!" she laughed, but he was serious.

They walked all around the _laiterie_, and all the time she was gay and
whimsical, and to herself she was saying, "I am unutterably happy, but
we must not talk of love."

"Now you have had enough of this," Lord Bracondale said, when they were
again in view of the house, "and I am going to take you into a forest
like the babes in the woods, and we shall go and lose ourselves and
forget the world altogether. The very sight of these harmless tourists
in the distance jars upon me to-day. I want you alone and no one else.
Come."

And she went.

"I have never been here before," said Theodora, as they turned into the
Forest of Marly. "And you have been wise in your choice so far. I love
trees."

"You see how I study and care for the things which belong to me," said
Hector. It gave him ridiculous pleasure to announce that sentence
again--ridiculous, unwarrantable pleasure.

Theodora turned her head away a little. She would like to have continued
the subject, but she did not dare.

Presently they came to a side _allee_, and after going up it about a
mile the automobile stopped, and they got out and walked down a green
glade to the right.

Oh, and I wonder if any of you who read know the Forest of Marly, and
this one green glade that leads down to the centre of a star where five
avenues meet? It is all soft grass and splendid trees, and may have been
a _rendezvous de chasse_ in the good old days, when life--for the
great--was fair in France.

It is very lonely now, and if you want to spend some hours in peace you
can almost count upon solitude there.

"Now, is not this beautiful?" he asked her, as they neared the centre,
"and soon you will see why I carry this rug over my arm. I am going to
take you right to the middle of the star until you see five paths for
you to choose from, all green and full of glancing sunlight, and when
you have selected one we will penetrate down it and sit under a tree. Is
it good--my idea?"

"Very good," said Theodora. The