quainted with it; for he never paused to ask the way, never
raised his eyes to the finger-posts that marked the cross-roads. She
marvelled at his confidence, but asked no questions. It was not a day for
questions.

Only when they emerged at last upon a wide moor, where the early heather
grew in tufts of deepest rose, she cried to him suddenly to stop.

"I must get some of it. It is the first I have seen. Look! How
exquisite!"

He drew up at the side of the long white road that zigzagged over the
moor, and they went together into the springy heath, wading in it after
the waxen flowers.

And here Anne sat down in the blazing sunshine and lifted her clear eyes
to his. "I won't thank you, because we are friends," she said. "But this
is the best day I have ever had."

He pushed up his goggles and sat down beside her. "So you are not sorry
you came?" he said.

"I could not be sorry to-day," she answered. "How long have you known
this perfect place?"

He lay back in the heather with his arms flung wide. "I came here first
one day in the spring, a day in May. The place was a blaze of gorse and
broom--as if it were on fire. It suited me--for I was on fire too."

In the silence that succeeded his words he turned and leisurely
scrutinised her. She was snapping a stalk of heather with minute care. A
deep flush rose and spread over her face under his eyes.

"Why don't you look at me?" he said.

Very slowly her eyes came down to him. He was smiling in a secret
fashion, not as if he expected her to smile in return. The sunlight beat
down upon his upturned face. He blinked at her lazily and stretched every
limb in succession, like a cat.

"Let me know when you begin to feel bored," he said. "I am quite ready to
amuse you."

"I thought it was only the bores who were ever bored," she said.

He opened his eyes a little. "Did I say that or did you?"

She returned to her heather-pulling. "I believe you said it originally."

"I remember," he returned composedly. "It was on the night you bestowed
upon me the office of court-jester, the night you dreamed I was the Knave
of Diamonds, the night that--"

She interrupted very gently but very resolutely; "The night that we
became friends, Nap."

"A good many things happened that night," he remarked, pulling off his
cap and pitching it from him.

"Is that wise?" she said. "The sun is rather strong."

He sat up, ignoring the warning. "Anne," he said, "have you ever dreamed
ab