lf an intruder, proposed
to go away at once.

"Oh, nonsense, you foolish boy!" she cried, laughing. "That is the very
reason I wanted you to come. I am always dreary after excitement, and I
knew you would put me in good spirits. Sit down."

I took a chair at the other side of the fireplace.

"Why do you go away so far?" she asked pettishly. "Are you afraid I shall
eat you? Come here;" and she indicated a chair close by her sofa at which
I had looked longingly while fearing to venture so near.

"There!" she said with an air of comfort, and looked into my face with the
open-eyed simplicity of a child. "Oh, Floyd," she exclaimed, but under her
breath, "I am so glad to see you again! Are you glad to be here with me?"

"Very glad: it is not worth while saying how glad."

"Why not? I never enjoyed anything half so much as I enjoyed last evening,
and half of it was because you were looking on. Tell me honestly now, was
I a success?"

"So great a success that I wondered so superb a belle cared to speak to a
boy like me. I often used to think of your future, Georgy, and had many
brilliant dreams for you: I have no doubt that you will fulfil them all."

She had quite lost her air of weariness, and flashed into life and
brilliance, and, starting up, was so close to me that I could feel the
warmth and fragrance of her cheek and hair. I should have drawn away my
chair, but that she had herself placed it; and now she fastened her little
slippered feet on the rounds and looked into my eyes thus closely with the
enchanting freedom of a child.

"It is so nice to hear you say such things!" she ran on, cooing into my
ear. "I am so glad you meet me kindly! I have cried sometimes to think
that my naughtiness at The Headlands had quite estranged you."

"Oh no. Why should you blame yourself?"

"Because I was to blame. But, Floyd, if you only knew what I have suffered
you would forgive me. Say that you forgive me."

She slid a slim satin hand into mine. I was not at all certain to what she
was alluding, but I took pleasure in assuring her that if I had anything
to forgive, I forgave it from my heart.

She withdrew her hand after a time with a sudden hauteur and caprice of
prudery, which was perhaps one of those delightful little ways to which
Thorpe had alluded.

"I missed you so after you left Belfield," she went on, her color
deepening as she spoke. "Everything seemed dull. No matter what we tried
to do, it seemed duller than