a particularly
worthy feeling, but certainly there was something about his attitude
that fostered it.

She guessed, and rightly, that, but for her, he would not have troubled
himself to attend these social gatherings, which he obviously enjoyed so
little. So when, having deliberately and with mischievous intent given
him the slip, she awoke suddenly to the fact that he had followed and
was standing near her, Audrey became childishly exasperated and seized
the first means of escape that offered.

The man she addressed was one of the least enthusiastic of her admirers,
but this did not trouble her at all. She had been a spoilt child all her
life, and she was accustomed to make use of others without stopping to
ascertain their inclinations.

Phil Turner, however, was by no means unwilling to be made use of in
this way. The boy was a gentleman, and was as chivalrous at heart as he
was honest.

He turned at once in response to her quick whisper and offered her his
arm.

"There's an old well at the back of the ruin," he said. "Come and see
it. Mind the stones."

"That was splendid of you," she said approvingly, as they moved away
together. "Are you always so prompt? But I know you're not. I shouldn't
have asked you, only I took you for Mr. Devereux. You are very like him
at the back."

"Never heard that before!" he responded bluntly. "Don't believe it,
either, if you will forgive my saying so."

She laughed, a merry, ringing laugh.

"Oh, don't you like Mr. Devereux?"

"Yes, he's all right." Phil seldom spoke a disparaging word of any of
his comrades. "But I haven't the smallest wish to be like him," he
added.

Audrey laughed at him again, freely, musically. She found this young
officer rather more entertaining than the rest.

They reached the other side of the shrine. Here, in a _debris_ of stones
and weeds, there appeared the circular mouth of an old well, forgotten
like the shrine and long disused.

Audrey examined the edge with a fastidious air, and finally sat down on
it. The place was flooded with moonlight.

"I wish I were a man," she said suddenly.

"Good Heavens! Why?"

He asked the question in amazement.

"I should like to be your equal," she told him gaily. "I should like to
do and say to you just exactly what I liked."

Phil considered this seriously.

"You can do both without being my equal," he remarked at length in his
bluntest tone, "that is, if you care to condescend."

"Goodness!"