sping of the fountains was very
audible. In the heavens, the moon climbed a little further and
registered a manifestly impossible hour on the sun-dial. It also
brightened.

It was a companionable sort of a moon. It invited talk of a
confidential nature.

"Bless my soul," it was signalling to any number of gentlemen at that
moment, "there's only you and I and the girl here. Speak out, man!
She'll have you now, if she ever will. You'll never have a chance like
this again, I can tell you. Come, now, my dear boy, I'm shining full
in your face, and you've no idea how becoming it is. I'm not like that
garish, blundering sun, who doesn't know any better than to let her
see how red and fidgetty you get when you're excited; I'm an old hand
at such matters. I've presided over these little affairs since Babylon
was a paltry village. _I'll_ never tell. And--and if anything should
happen, I'm always ready to go behind a cloud, you know. So, speak
out!--speak out, man, if you've the heart of a mouse!"

Thus far the conscienceless spring moon.

Mr. Kennaston sighed. The moon took this as a promising sign and
brightened over it perceptibly, and thereby afforded him an excellent
gambit.

"Yes?" said Margaret. "What is it, beautiful?"

That, in privacy, was her fantastic name for him.

The poet laughed a little. "Beautiful child," said he--and that, under
similar circumstances, was his perfectly reasonable name for
her--"I have been discourteous. To be frank, I have been sulking as
irrationally as a baby who clamours for the moon yonder."

"You aren't really anything but a baby, you know." Indeed, Margaret
almost thought of him as such. He was so delightfully naif.

He bent toward her. A faint tremor woke in his speech. "And so," said
he, softly, "I cry for the moon--the unattainable, exquisite moon. It
is very ridiculous, is it not?"

But he did not look at the moon. He looked toward Margaret--past
Margaret, toward the gleaming windows of Selwoode, where the Eagle
brooded:

"Oh, I really can't say," Margaret cried, in haste. "She was kind to
Endymion, you know. We will hope for the best. I think we'd better go
into the house now."

"You bid me hope?" said he.

"Beautiful, if you really want the moon, I don't see the _least_
objection to your continuing to hope. They make so many little
airships and things nowadays, you know, and you'll probably find it
only green cheese, after all. What _is_ green cheese, I wonder?--it