of her years as much as she
admires the beauty of yours. It makes me boil to see you corrupted by
this atmosphere!"

He was careful at the end of each little speech to stop and fondle her,
and to press her cool firm fingers to his lips in an ecstasy of
devotion.

"You were not made to rear a town-street full of dandies, of Lord Henrys
and his like, but to be the proud dam of a stalwart race of yeomen. It
is in just such a wild setting as this that you, the Diana of a truly
British country-side, could shine to greatest perfection. You are a
child of freedom, a bird whose gorgeous wings they are trying to clip."

They sat down on a bank. The brilliance of the moon illuminated the
country beyond. The chimneys of Sir Joseph's house were visible far away
to the right.

He had another passionate outburst, convincing because he was genuinely
at his wit's end with longing. He smothered her with his embraces,
rained kisses on a face that was seductively screened by roughly
dishevelled hair, and which smiled back at him with a look of
intoxication almost equal to his own. And then at last, concluding
instinctively that the moment had come for complete forgetfulness, he
even thought he might proceed to discount bills of intimacy before they
had become due,--a practice not uncommon in England,--and he held her in
a way that was at least novel to the eager flapper.

Half fearfully he waited for the effect of his daring action. She said
nothing, but simply showed her magnificent white teeth in a smile that
betokened the most complete satisfaction.

"Leo, fly away with me, will you? Don't let us wait to ask. Let us go. I
have savings; besides, I am no fool. It would mean leaving Bullion's of
course, but why need we mind that? You can trust me, can't you? Let us
leave this hated place, with its people who do not understand us. We
might go to Canada, where wild nature has taught people to be more
natural than they are here. Oh, say you will come with me. It would be
heavenly!"

"Do you mean at once?" she exclaimed, laughing now at the transport of
devotion which had just made him kiss her feet.

"Well, I suppose we could not go actually now, but at the latest
to-morrow at this time. We might steal away while everybody's dressing
for the dance."

She was lying back on the bank, her eyes were keen with thought, her
mouth now closed in solemn reflection. Suddenly he recognised not fifty
yards away, fully revealed in the moonli