id if I didn't, I couldn't
wear the hat."

Somebody, Rose's mistress, had been in Rose's secret. She knew and
understood his great poem of the Hat.

Rose took it out of the band-box and put it on. Impossible to say
whether he liked her better with it or without it. He thought without;
for she had parted her hair in the middle and braided it at the back.

"Do you like my hair?" said she.

"Why didn't you do it like that before?"

"I don't know. I wanted to. But I didn't."

"Why not?"

Rose hid her face. "I thought," said she, "you'd notice, and think--and
think I was after you."

No. He could never say that she had been after him, that she had laid a
lure. No huntress she. But she had found him, the hunted, run down and
sick in his dark den. And she had stooped there in the darkness, and
tended and comforted him.

They set out.

"_She_ said I was to tell you," said Rose, "to be sure and take me
through the pine-woods to the pond."

How well that lady knew the setting that would adorn his Rose; sunlight
and shadow that made her glide fawn-like among the tall stems of the
trees. Through the pine-woods he took her, his white wood-nymph, and
through the low lands covered with bog myrtle, fragrant under her feet.
Beyond the marsh they found a sunny hollow in the sand where the heath
touched the pond. The brushwood sheltered them.

Side by side they sat and took their fill of joy in gazing at each
other, absolutely dumb.

It was Tanqueray who broke that beautiful silence. He had obtained her.
He had had his way and must have it to the end. He loved her; and the
thing beyond all things that pleased him was to tease and torment the
creatures that he loved.

"Rose," he said, "do you think I'm good-looking?"

"No. Not what you call good-looking."

"How do you know what I call good-looking?"

"Well--_me_. Don't you?"

"You're a woman. Give me your idea of a really handsome man."

"Well--do you know Mr. Robinson?"

"No. I do not know Mr. Robinson."

"Yes, you do. He keeps the shop in the High Street where you get your
'ankychiefs and collars. You bought a collar off of him the other day.
He told me."

"By Jove, so I did. Of course I know Mr. Robinson. What about him?"

"Well--_he's_ what I call a _handsome_ man."

"Oh." He paused. "Would you love me more if I were as handsome as Mr.
Robinson?"

"No. Not a bit more. I couldn't. I'd love you just the same if you were
as ugly as poor Uncle. There, wha