id Brook, persuasively.

"Then it's making a very good pretence!" laughed Clare.

"It's ever so much cooler out of doors. If you'll only come out for one
minute, you'll see. Really--I'm in earnest."

"But why should I go out if I don't want to?" asked the young girl.

"Because I asked you to--"

"Oh, that isn't a reason, you know," she laughed again.

"Well, then, because you really would, if I hadn't asked you, and you
only refuse out of a spirit of opposition," suggested Brook.

"Oh--do you think so? Do you think I generally do just the contrary of
what I'm asked to do?"

"Of course, everybody knows that, who knows you." Brook seemed amused
at the idea.

"If you think that--well, I'll come, just for a minute, if it's only to
show you that you are quite wrong."

"Thanks, awfully. Sha'n't we go for the little walk that was interrupted
when my people came the other day?"

"No--it's too hot, really. I'll walk as far as the end of the terrace
and back--once. Do you mind telling me why you are so tremendously
anxious to have me come out this very minute?"

"I'll tell you--at least, I don't know that I can--wait till we are
outside. I should like to be out with you all the time, you know--and I
thought you might come, so I asked you."

"You seem rather confused," said Clare gravely.

"Well, you know," Brook answered as they walked along towards the
dazzling green light that filled the door, "to tell the truth, between
one thing and another--" He did not complete the sentence.

"Yes?" said Clare, sweetly. "Between one thing and another--what were
you going to say?"

Brook did not answer as they went out into the hot, blossom-scented air,
under the spreading vines.

"Do you mean to say it's cooler here than indoors?" asked the young
girl in a tone of resignation.

"Oh, it's much cooler! There's a breeze at the end of the walk."

"The sea is like oil," observed Clare. "There isn't the least breath."

"Well," said Brook, "it can't be really hot, because it's only the first
week in June after all."

"This isn't Scotland. It's positively boiling, and I wish I hadn't come
out. Beware of first impulses--they are always right!"

But she glanced sideways at his face, for she knew that something was in
the air. She was not sure what to expect of him just then, but she knew
that there was something to expect. Her instinct told her that he meant
to speak and to say more than he had yet said. It told her that he