s about
owning to it, his obvious attention flattered her. All the same, she
was in the mood just then for Martin. He went better with the time of
year, and there was something awfully companionable about his sudden
laugh. She would have hailed his appearance at that moment with an
outdoor cry.

It was bad luck for Palgrave, because he now knew definitely that in
Joan he had found the girl who was to give him the great emotion.

She broke away from "The Spring Song" and swung into "D'ye Ken John
Peel with His Coat So Gay?" It was Martin's favorite air. How often she
had heard him shout it among the trees on his way to meet her out there
on the edge of the woods where they had found each other. It was
curious how her thoughts turned to Martin that night.

She left the piano in the middle of a bar. "One cigarette," she said,
and held out a silver box.

Palgrave's hand closed tightly over her slim white arm. In his throat
his heart was pumping. He spoke incoherently, like a man. "God," he
said, "you--you take my breath away. You make my brain whirl. Why
didn't you come out of your garden a year ago?"

He was acting, she thought, and she laughed. "My arm, I think," she
said.

"No, mine. It's got to be mine. What's the good of beating about the
bush?" He spoke with a queer hoarseness, and his hand shook.

She laughed again. He was trying his parlor tricks, as Hosack had
called them one night at the Crystal Room, watching him greet a woman
with both hands. What a joke to see what he would do if she pretended
to be carried away. He might as well be made to pay for keeping her up.
"Oh, Gilbert," she said, "what are you saying!" Her shyness and fright
were admirable.

They added fuel to his fire. "What I've been waiting to say for years
and never thought I should. I love you. You've just got me."

How often had he said those very words to other women! He did it
surpassingly well. She continued to act. "Oh, Gilbert," she said in a
low voice, "you mustn't. There's Alice." Two could play at his pet game.

"Yes, there is Alice. But what does that matter? I don't care, and you
don't. Your motto is not to care. You're always saying so. I'm no more
married to Alice than you are to Gray. They're accidents, both of them.
I love you, I tell you." And he ran his hand up to her shoulder and
bore down upon her. Where were his manners and polish and assurance? It
was amazing to see the change in the man.

But she dodged away and