t.

"The weather," she repeated, "is unusually warm. Do you think that
Major Anderson will hold out at Sumter? Do you think the fleet is
going to relieve him? Dear me," she sighed, "where will it all
end, Mr. Berkley?"

"In war," he said, also smiling; but neither of them believed it,
or, at the moment, cared. There were other matters
impending--since their first encounter.

"I have thought about you a good deal since Camilla's theatre
party," he said pleasantly.

"Have you?" She scarcely knew what else to say--and regretted
saying anything.

"Indeed I have. I dare not believe you have wasted as much as one
thought on the man you danced with once--and refused ever after."

She felt, suddenly, a sense of uneasiness in being near him.

"Of course I have remembered you, Mr. Berkley," she said with
composure. "Few men dance as well. It has been an agreeable
memory to me."

"But you would not dance with me again."

"I--there were--you seemed perfectly contented to sit out--the
rest--with me."

He considered the carpet attentively. Then looking up with quick,
engaging smile:

"I want to ask you something. May I?"

She did not answer. As it had been from the first time she had
ever seen him, so it was now with her; a confused sense of the
necessity for caution in dealing with a man who had inspired in her
such an unaccountable inclination to listen to what he chose to say.

"What is it you wish to ask?" she inquired pleasantly.

"It is this: are you _really_ surprised that I came? Are you, in
your heart?"

"Did I appear to be very much agitated? Or my heart, either, Mr.
Berkley?" she asked with a careless laugh, conscious now of her
quickening pulses. Outwardly calm, inwardly Irresolute, she faced
him with a quiet smile of confidence.

"Then you were not surprised that I came?" he insisted.

"You did not wait to be asked. That surprised me a little."

"I did wait. But you didn't ask me."

"That seems to have made no difference to you," she retorted,
laughing.

"It made this difference. I seized upon the only excuse I had and
came to pay my respects as a kinsman. Do you know that I am a
relation?"

"That is a very pretty compliment to us all, I think."

"It is you who are kind in accepting me."

"As a relative, I am very glad to----"

"I came," he said, "to see _you_. And you know it."

"But you _couldn't_ do that, uninvited! I had not asked you."

"But--it's done," he sa