can set Don
and Adele right, after that confounded foolishness of theirs last
night--and this rotten robbery coming on top of it, to make things
look black! It's a frightful, awful mixup, really, but as innocent as
daylight if you only understand it. Look here, won't you give me a
show to explain?"

"Why, I'm here, and I can't help listening."

"No. I mean later. I can't stop now, really."

"How much later?"

"Let's see. It's nearly midnight, and all this has got to be
cleared up and set straight before one. Do be patient with me until a
quarter to one, now won't you please?"

"I may be busy then."

"Oh, come! That's all swank, and you know it. Besides, you do owe me,
at least, some little consideration. I don't mean that, exactly--our
account's pretty well squared, the way I see it. But, after all,
life's a give-and-take affair. Say you'll meet me at a quarter to
one."

"Well. Where?"

He appeared to take thought. "It's got to be somewhere off the beaten
track. And you're not afraid of the dark. Would you mind coming as far
as the gate on the drive?"

"Back there, beyond the trees?"

"I mean the gateway to the main road."

"I wonder why you want me there, of all places. Oh, never mind!" She
forestalled a protest of injured innocence. "I'm not in the least
afraid to find out. Yes; I'll be there at a quarter to one."

"You're a brick!" Savage declared fervently. "You won't regret being
so decent to me. Now I'll run along and be a diplomatist."

He cut a light-hearted caper, just to prove he could, slashed the air
gaily with his wooden sword, bowed low and skipped round the corner,
leaving Sally even more puzzled than before but somehow
placated--comforted by a sense of her own consequence conjured up by
the way in which apparently she could manage people . . .

Savage, for instance.

CHAPTER XIV

MAGIC

For several seconds after Savage had made off Sally delayed there,
alone on the empty lawn in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House,
doubting what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs. Gosnold;
questioning the motive for that furtive meeting which she had
surprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote and
inconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept in
so underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to it
and would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the
time until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the li