s, but he greeted her with: "Here
you are at last, Mildred! Do you know how much behind time you are?"--he
took out his watch--"Exactly thirty-five minutes. I should have given
you up if I hadn't known that breaking your promise is not among your
numerous vices, and unpunctuality is."

Who on earth was he? And why did he call her by her Christian name?
Milly went a beautiful pink with embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry. I thought the party would have just begun," she replied.

"You don't mean to say you want to keep me kicking my heels while you go
to a confounded party? I thought you knew I was off to Paris to-night,
after that Firdusi manuscript, and I think of taking the Continental
Express to Constantinople next week. I don't know when I shall be back.
Surely, Mildred, it's not a great deal to ask you to spare half an hour
from a wretched party to come on the river with me before I go?" It
struck Maxwell as he ended that he was falling into the whining of the
Occidental lover. He was determined that he would clear the situation
this afternoon; the more determined because he was conscious of a
feeling odiously resembling fear which had before now held him back from
plain dealing with Mildred. Afraid of a woman? It was too ridiculous.

Milly, meanwhile, felt herself on firmer ground. This must be Ian's
cousin, Maxwell Davison, the Orientalist. But there was nothing nomadic
in her heart to thrill to the idea of being on the Cherwell this
afternoon, in London this evening, in Paris next morning, in
Constantinople next week.

"Of course I'll come on the river with you," she said. "I'm sorry I'm
late. I'm afraid I--I'd forgotten."

Forgotten! How simply she said it! Yet it was surely the veriest
impudence of coquetry. He looked at her slowly from the hat downward, as
he lounged leisurely at her side.

"War-paint, I see!" he remarked. "Armed from head to heel with all the
true and tried female weapons. They're just the same all the world
over--'plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose,'--though no doubt you
fancy they're different. Who's the frock put on for, Mildred? For the
party, or--for me?"

Milly was conscious of such an extreme absence of intention so far as
Maxwell was concerned, that it would have been rude to express it. She
went very pink again, and lifting forget-me-not blue eyes to his
inscrutable ones, articulated slowly:

"I'm sure I don't know."

Her eyes were like a child's and a shy smile curved he