perhaps you would like to be left to enjoy the moonlight and
your meditations by yourself?" I questioned. I knew I ought to have
just gone away, but I simply couldn't when she looked so enticing.

"Do you want to go?" she asked.

"No!" I ejaculated, so forcibly that she gave a little startled jump
in her chair. "That is--I mean," I stuttered, embarrassed by my own
vehemence, "I rather thought you might not want me to stay."

"What made you think that?" she demanded.

I never was a good hand at inventing explanations, and after a
moment's seeking for some reason, I plumped out, "Because I feared
you might not think it proper to use my car, and I suppose it's my
presence that made you think it."

She took my stupid fumble very nicely, laughing merrily while saying,
"If you like mountains and moonlight, Mr. Gordon, and don't mind the
lack of a chaperon, get a stool for yourself, too." What was more, she
offered me half of the lap-robe when I was seated beside her.

I think she was pleased by my offer to go away, for she talked very
pleasantly, and far more intimately than she had ever done before,
telling me facts about her family, her Chicago life, her travels, and
even her thoughts. From this I learned that her elder brother was an
Oxford graduate, and that Lord Ralles and his brother were classmates,
who were visiting him for the first time since he had graduated. She
asked me some questions about my work, which led me to tell her pretty
much everything about myself that I thought could be of the least
interest; and it was a very pleasant surprise to me to find that she
knew one of the old team, and had even heard of me from him.

"Why," she exclaimed, "how absurd of me not to have thought of it
before! But, you see, Mr. Colston always speaks of you by your first
name. You ought to hear how he praises you."

"Trust Harry to praise any one," I said. "There were some pretty low
fellows on the old team--men who couldn't keep their word or their
tempers, and would slug every chance they got; but Harry used to
insist there wasn't a bad egg among the lot."

"Don't you find it very lonely to live out here, away from old
friends?" she asked.

I had to acknowledge that it was, and told her the worst part was the
absence of pleasant women. "Till you arrived, Miss Cullen," I said, "I
hadn't seen a well-gowned woman in four years." I've always noticed
that a woman would rather have a man notice and praise her frock than