alled out, "Fine morning,
Colonel Ercott." The Colonel saluted, and did not answer. The greeting
at the moment seemed to him paltry. No morning could be fine that
contained such a discovery. He entered the hotel, passed into the
dining-room, and sat down. Nobody was there. They all had their
breakfast upstairs, even Dolly. Olive alone was in the habit of
supporting him while he ate an English breakfast. And suddenly he
perceived that he was face to face already with this dreadful situation.
To have breakfast without, as usual, waiting for her, seemed too
pointed. She might be coming in at any minute now. To wait for her, and
have it, without showing anything--how could he do that?

He was conscious of a faint rustling behind him. There she was, and
nothing decided. In this moment of hopeless confusion the Colonel acted
by pure instinct, rose, patted her cheek, and placed a chair.

"Well, my dear," he said; "hungry?"

She was looking very dainty, very soft. That creamy dress showed off her
dark hair and eyes, which seemed somehow to be--flying off somewhere;
yes--it was queer, but that was the only way to put it. He got no
reassurance, no comfort, from the sight of her. And slowly he stripped
the skin from the banana with which he always commenced breakfast. One
might just as well be asked to shoot a tame dove or tear a pretty flower
to pieces as be expected to take her to task, even if he could, in
honour. And he sought refuge in the words:

"Been out?" Then could have bitten his tongue off. Suppose she answered:
"No."

But she did not so answer. The colour came into her cheeks, indeed, but
she nodded: "It's so lovely!"

How pretty she looked saying that! He had put himself out of court
now--could never tell her what he had seen, after setting, as it were,
that trap for her; and presently he asked:

"Got any plans to-day?"

She answered, without flinching in the least:

"Mark Lennan and I were going to take mules from Mentone up to Gorbio."

He was amazed at her steadiness--never, to his knowledge, having
encountered a woman armoured at every point to preserve a love that
flies against the world. How tell what was under her smile! And in
confusion of feeling that amounted almost to pain he heard her say:

"Will you and Aunt Dolly come?"

Between sense of trusteeship and hatred of spoiling sport; between
knowledge of the danger she was in and half-pitying admiration at the
sight of her; between real disapp