em a faint bluish tint faded into the
whiteness of the cheek.

"Darling, darling!" whispered Kathleen, bending closer over the sleeping
girl, "I love you so--I love you so!" And even as she said it, between
the sleeper's features and her own floated the vision of Scott's
youthfully earnest face; and she straightened suddenly to her full
height and laid her hand on her breast in consternation. Under the
fingers' soft pressure her heart beat faster. Again, with new dismay,
this incredible sensation was stealing upon her, threatening to
transform itself into something real, something definite, something not
to be stifled or ignored.

She extinguished the candle; as she felt her way out of the darkness,
arms extended, far away in the house she heard a door open and shut, and
she bent over the balustrade to listen.

"Is that you, Scott?" she called softly.

"Yes; Duane and I did some billiards at the club." He looked up at her,
the same slight pucker between his brows, boyishly slender in his
evening dress. "You're not going to bed at once, are you, Kathleen,
dear?"

"Yes, I am," she said briefly, backing into her own room, but holding
the door ajar so that she could look out at him.

"Oh, come out and talk to a fellow," he urged; "I'm quite excited about
this Roya-Neh business----"

"You're a perfect wretch, Scott. I don't want to talk about your unholy
extravagance."

The boy laughed and stood at ease looking at the pretty face partly
disclosed between door and wall with darkness for a velvety background.

"Just come out into the library while I smoke one cigarette," he began
in his wheedling way. "I'm dying to talk to you about the
game-preserve----"

"I can't; I'm not attired for a tete-a-tete with anything except my
pillow."

"Then put on one of those fetching affairs you wear sometimes----"

"Oh, Scott, you are a nuisance!"

When, a few moments later, she came into the library in a delicate
shimmering thing and little slippers of the same elusive tint, Scott
jumped up and dragged a big chair forward.

"You certainly are stunning, Kathleen," he said frankly; "you look
twenty with all the charm of thirty. Sit here; I've a map of the
Roya-Neh forest to show you."

He drew up a chair for himself, lifted a big map from the table, and,
unrolling it, laid it across her knees. Then he began to talk
enthusiastically about lake and stream and mountain, and about wild boar
and deer and keepers and lodges; and