In the yard she paused again.

"And spying's only for people like me," she continued daintily. "It's
not work for the gentry."

They were walking across the Paddock Close now under dim heavens toward
the light in the cottage across the way.

"I suppose not," he answered imperturbably. "I'm glad I'm not one."

"Oh, but you are," with quiet insistence. "Your father could have been a
peer. You've told us about it many a time."

Jim Silver was roused. He surged up alongside the girl in the night, and
pinched her arm above the elbow.

"Now look here, little woman!" he said.

She released her arm.

"Not so loud," she ordered. "And don't creak so."

They walked delicately in the darkness, the light guiding them, till
they came to the ragged hedge at the foot of a long strip of cottage
garden.

The night was very warm, the blinds up, the windows wide.

Joses, in his shirt-sleeves, was busy within working at something.

The girl watched awhile through her glasses and then withdrew quietly.

"He's whittling at wooden pegs," she whispered, keen as a knife.

"Obviously."

"What was that coil on the table?"

"Wire."

"And the thing beside it?"

"Mallet."

She glanced up at him in the dusk.

"You're short," she said.

The stables showed before them, long and black against the sky.

They were nearly off the grass. In another moment their feet would take
the cobbles with a noise.

The girl paused and put her hand on her companion's arm.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

The resistance died out of him at once. He stood breathing deeply at her
side.

She lifted her face to his.

"Mr. Silver!"

"Sweetheart!"

He loomed above her like a great shadow; and she felt his love beating
all about her as with wings.

"Bend your head!"

His face drew down to hers in the dusk.

Then his arms stole about her lithe body; and his laughter was in her
ear soft as the cooing of a dove.

"Don't kiss me," she said.

"You deserve it," he replied.

Her hands rested light as birds upon his shoulders; her eyes were steady
in his, and very close.

"D'you love me?" she asked, her voice so calm, so pure, somehow so like
a singing star.

He choked.

"A bit--sometimes."

"Then I'll whisper you," she said.

Her beautiful little arms, wreathing about his neck, drew his ear to her
lips.

She whispered.

He chuckled deeply.

"Good," he said, and added--"Is that all?"

She released him and withdrew.

"