nyway. Sometimes we're lucky enough to
get another chance. If we do----"

The gush and ripple of the fountain, the rustle of the broad-leaved
lilies as the changing breeze sent the spray pattering across them;
filled pleasantly the lapses of his leisurely speech. Flavia was
acutely conscious of his steady gaze upon her bent head, and the
unhurried certainty with which he was moving toward his chosen goal.
Only, what was that goal? She remembered Isabel's sureness of her own
attraction, Isabel's deliberate monopoly of Gerard's attention whenever
possible during the last ten days, and Corrie's assertion that his
cousin was "just the kind of girl Gerard would like." Yet, he was saying
this to her, Flavia. And suddenly she was almost sure of what she never
had dared imagine.

She had no thought that Gerard might be hesitating in uncertain humility
before the delicate maidenhood that invested her like a fine atmosphere
forbidding approach. She was not even dimly aware that her averted face
controlled to soft impassivity, the intent gaze on her work which veiled
her eyes beneath their heavy lashes, the regular movement of her slender
fingers as she sewed, conveyed an impression of unmoved serenity that
might have quelled a vainer man than Allan Gerard. Yet it was so, and he
temporized; not knowing that for her there were three people in the
arcade, the third Isabel, and not daring to continue his broken
sentence.

"I have been wondering if you ever translated your name," he remarked,
when silence verged on embarrassment. "I have wondered many times if it
were just chance that called you so."

"My Mother was Flavia Corwin; I am named for her. What does it mean?"
she answered, surprised.

Just for an instant she looked at him, and in the one encounter of
glances innocently undid all her reserve had built up. Gerard's color
ran up under his clear skin like a girl's, brilliant-eyed, he took a
step into the arcade.

"It's too late in the season to tell you out here," he demurred. "I'll
send you the translation this evening, if I may. There's something else
I'd like to tell you, but I've got to find some civilized clothing,
first. Essex lost his head for approaching the Queen in his
riding-dress, and I'm risking more. I----"

"Hurry up, you two!" hailed Corrie's injured voice, the ring of his step
sounded in the stone arcade. "It's six o'clock now. Come on in."

"I'll come," Gerard answered the summons, again his warm, sp