im with growing eagerness, and he
replied with a smile and always that half-reverent, half-shy courtliness
that had first attracted her. Undoubtedly he was a pleasant companion. He
clothed the information for which she asked in careful and picturesque
language. He was ready at any moment to render any service, however
slight, but his attentions were so unobtrusive that Hilary could not
but accept them with pleasure. She maintained her pretty graciousness
throughout dinner, anxious to set him at his ease.

"Englishmen are not half so nice," she said to herself, as she rose from
the table. And she thought of the stubborn Viscount Merrivale as she
said it.

There was a friendly regret at her departure written in the man's eyes as
he opened the door for her, and with a sudden girlish impulse she paused.

"Why don't you come and smoke your cigar in the punt?" she said.

He glanced irresolutely over his shoulder at the other two men who were
discussing some political problem with much absorption.

With a curious desire to have her way with him, the girl waited with a
little laugh.

"Come!" she said softly. "You can't be interested in British politics."

He looked at her with his friendly, silent smile, and followed her out.

* * * * *

"Isn't it heavenly?" breathed Hilary, as she lay back on the velvet
cushions and watched the man's strong figure bend to the punt-pole.

"I think it is Heaven, Miss St. Orme," he answered in a hushed voice.

The sun had scarcely set in a cloudless shimmer of rose, and, sailing up
from the east, a full moon cast a rippling, silvery pathway upon the
mysterious water.

The girl drew a long sigh of satisfaction, then laughed a little.

"What a shame to make you work after dinner!" she said.

She saw his smile in the moonlight.

"Do you call this work?" She seemed to hear a faint ring of amusement in
the slowly-uttered question.

"You are very strong," she said almost involuntarily.

"Yes," he agreed quietly, and there suddenly ran a curious thrill through
her--a feeling that she and he had once been kindred spirits together in
another world.

She felt as if their intimacy had advanced by strides when she spoke
again, and the sensation was one of a strange, quivering delight which
the perfection of the June night seemed to wholly justify. Anyhow, it was
not a moment for probing her inner self with searching questions. She
turned a little and suffer