st awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. Will you forgive
me?"

The girl sat up straight in her chair at that, and looked at him. She
was too generous to ignore a frank appeal for pardon, but she had that
within which demanded propitiation.

"Have you any explanation to offer?" she asked, and he answered:

"I clean forgot all about it."

She stared at him in exasperation and scorn, her eyes sparkling with
anger, and he returned her gaze with his frank and fearless smile.
"_M'Schlega_," the natives called him--"the man who always laughs
whether good or bad comes to him."

Gay at last withdrew her face into the shadows where he could no longer
see it clearly.

"I suppose you think that disappointing a girl and making her lose a
dance is nothing," she said quietly.

"You misjudge me. If I had thought about it at all, it would never
have happened. But the whole thing went clean out of my mind until it
was too late to dress and get down here in time. Do you think I would
_purposely_ miss such a keen pleasure as it is to dance with you--and
the honour of having your first waltz given me?"

She did not answer, but slowly her anger began to fade.

"I came down here as hard as I could belt, as soon as I remembered."

More anger melted away.

"I haven't even had my dinner yet."

Gay sprang up like a whirlwind.

"Oh, how detestable you are," she said, in a low, furious voice, "with
your dinner and your wretched excuses! Do you think I don't know what
you were doing that you forgot? Everyone knows what you are doing when
you forget your engagements--playing poker and drinking with a lot of
low gambling men, wasting your money and your time and all that is fine
in you!"

Druro had stood up, too, and faced her with the first bolt she flung.
They were quite alone, for the trilling notes of a two-step had swiftly
emptied the veranda. He still wore a smile on his lips, but its
singularly heart-warming quality had gone from it. His red-brown face
had grown a shade less red-brown, and his grey, whimsical, good-natured
eyes looked suddenly hard as rock. He addressed her as if she were
someone he had never met before.

"You are very plain-spoken!"

"You need a little plain-speaking," she said passionately.

"It is a pity to waste wit and wisdom on an object so unworthy.
Obviously, I am past reforming"--his smile had a mocking turn to it
now--"even if I wanted to be reformed."

"_Of course_ you don't want to