he
alliance of Ronador and Princess Phaedra, there was doubt and bitter
suffering. And he might not return to the music-machine.

Themar's thin lips smiled but he wisely retreated.

CHAPTER XXXII

FOREST FRIENDS

Northward to Jacksonville had journeyed the camp of the Indian girl,
bearing away Diane, to Aunt Agatha's unspeakable agitation. Now,
joining forces, these two forest friends, linked in an idle moment by
the nameless freemasonry of the woodland, were winding happily south
along the seacoast. Nights their camps lay side by side.

Keela, with shy and delightful gravity, slipped wide-eyed into the
niceties of civilization, coiled her heavy hair in the fashion of Diane
and copied her dress naively. Diane felt a thrill of satisfaction at
this singular finding of a friend whose veins knew the restless stir of
nomadic blood, a friend who was fleeter of foot, keener of vision and
hearing and better versed in the ways of the woodland than Diane
herself. And Diane had known no peer in the world of white men.

There were gray dawns when a pair of silent riders went galloping
through the stillness upon the Westfall horses, riding easily without
saddles; there were twilights when they swam in sheltered pools like
wild brown nymphs; there were quiet hours by the camp fire when the
inborn reticence of the Indian girl vanished in the frank sincerity of
Diane's friendship. Of Mr. Poynter and the hay-camp there was no sign.

"Doubtless," considered Diane disdainfully, "he has come at last to his
senses. And I'm very glad he has, very glad indeed. It's time he did.
I think I made my displeasure sufficiently clear at the exceedingly
tricky way he and the Baron conducted themselves at Palm Beach. And
the Baron was no better than Philip. Indeed, I think he was very much
worse. If Philip hadn't wandered about in the garb of Herodotus and
murmured that impertinence about 'frost in Florida' it wouldn't have
been so bad. It's a very unfortunate thing, however, that he never
seems to remember one's displeasure or the cause of it."

But for one who rejoiced in Mr. Poynter's belated inheritance of common
sense, Diane's comment a few days later was very singular.

"I wonder," she reflected uncomfortably, "if Philip understands smoke
signals. He may be lost."

But Philip was not lost. He was merely discreet.

A lonely beach fringed in sand hills lay before the camp. Beyond
rolled the ocean, itself a melancho