.

"I? Why, no."

If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired;
but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to
beat.

"I cabled them two words: 'Accept--provisionally,'" he said.

"Oh, what did you mean?"

"Provisionally meant--with your consent."

"My--my consent?"

"Yes--if it is your pleasure."

Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her
little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young
man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs
crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct
told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so
instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was
aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him,
gravely; "I may permit you to accept."

So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche--a
stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in
such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he
was not vaulting over it instead.

Having openly and admittedly established her sovereignty, she was
happy--so happy that she began to feel that perhaps the victory
was not unshared by him.

"I shall think it over very seriously," she repeated, watching
his laughing eyes; "I am not sure that I shall permit you to go."

"I only wish to go as a special, not a regular correspondent. I
wish to be at liberty to roam about and sketch or write what I
please. I think my material will always be found in your
vicinity."

Her heart fluttered a little; this surprised her so much that her
cheeks grew suddenly warm and pink. A little confused, she said
what she had not dreamed of saying: "You won't go very far away,
will you?" And before she could modify her speech he had
answered, impetuously: "Never, until you send me away!"

A mottled thrush on the top of the linden-tree surveyed the scene
curiously. She had never beheld such a pitiably embarrassed young
couple in all her life. It was so different in Thrushdom.

Lorraine's first impulse was to go away and close several doors
and sit down, very still, and think. Her next impulse was to stay
and see what Jack would do. He seemed to be embarrassed, too--he
fidgeted and tossed twigs and pebbles into the river. She felt
that she, who already admittedly was arbiter of his goings and
comings, should do something to relieve this uneasy and strained
situation. So