. . . I suppose you think I'm
talking out of my turn." She turned and faced him with a slight smile.

"On the contrary," answered Vane, "you have interested me immensely.
But you've dodged the one vital question--for me, at any rate. What is
the beaten track? Just at present I can't find it?"

"You'll not find it any easier by looking for it too hard," she said
thoughtfully. "I'm certain of that. . . . It'll come in a flash to
you, when you least expect it, and you'll see it as clear as daylight."

For a while they sat in silence, both busy with their own thoughts.
Then the girl laughed musically.

"To think of me," she gurgled, "holding forth like this. . . . Why,
I've never done such a thing before that I can remember." Then of a
sudden she became serious. The big grey eyes looked steadily, almost
curiously, at the face of the man beside her. "I wonder why," she
whispered almost below her breath. "You've been most poisonously rude
to me, and yet . . . and yet here am I talking to you as I've never
talked to any other man in my life."

Vane stared at the pool for a few moments before he answered. He was
becoming uncomfortably aware that grey eyes with a certain type of chin
were attractive--very attractive. But his tone was light when he spoke.

"A quarrel is always a sound foundation." He looked up at her with a
smile, but her eyes still held that half speculative look. . . .

"I wonder what you would have thought of me," she continued after a
moment, "if you'd met me before the war. . . ."

"Why, that children of fifteen should be in bed by ten," he mocked.

"Yes, but supposing I was what I am now, and you were what you were
then--and you weren't filled with all these ideas about duty and
futures and things. . . ."

"You would have added another scalp to the collection, I expect," said
Vane drily.

They both laughed, then she bent slightly towards him. "Will you
forgive me for what I said about--about that woman you were going to
see?"

"Why--sure," answered Vane. "I guess you owed me one."

Joan laughed. "We'll wash the first lesson out. Except, of course,
for that one thing you said. I mean about--the other. . . . I'd just
hate to forget that there's a wedding coming on, and do anything that
would make it awkward for me to be asked to the church. . . ."

"You little devil, Joan," said Vane softly, "you little devil."

She laughed lightly and sprang to her feet. "I must be goin