tone. He laid his
fingers on her arm. "What's your hurry?" he asked.

"We ought to keep with the others," Julia stammered, scarlet cheeked but
half laughing. At the same instant his inclination to cut across her
path brought her to a full stop. She backed against a heavily tasselled
and upholstered old armchair that chanced to be standing in the wings,
and sitting down on one of its high arms, looked straight up into his
eyes. The others had gone on; they were alone in the draughty wings.

"Why ought we?" said Hazzard, still in a low voice full of significance,
his eyes on her shoulder, where he straightened a ruffle that was caught
under a chain of beads. "If you like me and I like you, why shouldn't we
have a little talk?"

However young she might appear, the inanities of a flirtation were a
familiar field to Julia. She gave him a demure and unsmiling glance from
between curled lashes, and said:

"What would you like to talk about?"

By this time their faces were close together; a sort of heady lightness
in the atmosphere set them both to laughing foolishly; their voices
trembled on uncertain notes. An exhilarating sense of her own sex and
charm thrilled Julia; she knew that he found her sweet and young and
wonderful.

"I'd like to talk about _you_!" said Carter Hazzard. Julia found his
audacity delightful; she began to feel that she could not keep up with
the dazzling rush of his repartee. "You know, the minute I saw you--" he
added.

"Now, _don't_ tell me I'm pretty!" Julia begged, with another flashing
look.

"No--no!" the man exclaimed, discarding mere beauty with violence.
"Pretty! Lord! what does prettiness matter? Of course you're pretty, but
do you know what I said to myself the minute I saw you? I said, 'I'll
bet that little girl has _brains_!' You smile," said Mr. Hazzard, with
passionate earnestness, "but I'll swear to God I did!"

"Oh, you just want me to believe that!" scoffed Julia, dimpling.

What they said, however, mattered as little as what might be said by the
two occupants of a boat that was drifting swiftly toward rapids.

"Why do you think an unkind thing like that?" Carter asked
reproachfully.

"Was that unkind?" Julia countered innocently. At which Mr. Hazzard
observed irrelevantly, in a low voice:

"Do you know you're absolutely fascinating? Do you? You're just the kind
of little girl I want to know--to be friends with--to have for a pal!"

Julia was quite wise enough to kno