not
resist. "Helena," said I suddenly, "give me your parole that you will
not try to escape, and I will walk with you among yonder flowers. You
look as though just from a Watteau fan, my dear. It is fall, but seems
spring, and the world seems made for flowers and shepherds and love,
my dear. Do you give me your word?"

"If I do, may I walk alone?"

"No, with me."

"I'll not try to take the train. On my honor, I will not."

I looked deep into her eyes and saw, as always, only truth there--her
deep brown eyes, filled with some deep liquid light whose color I
never could say--looked till my own senses swam. I could scarcely
speak.

"I take your parole, Helena," I said. "You never lied to me or any
other human being in the world."

"You don't know me," said she. "I used often to lie to mama, and
frequently do yet to Aunt Lucinda. But not if I say I give my word--my
real word."

"When will you give me your real word, Helena? You know what I
mean--when will you say that you love me and no one else?"

"Never!" said she promptly. "I hate you very much. You have been
presumptuous and overbearing."

"Why then should you promenade with me?"

"Fault of anything better, Sir!" But she took my hand lightly, smiling
as I assisted her down the landing way.

"But tell me," she added as we made our way slowly up the muddy slope,
"really, Harry, how long is this thing to last? When are we going back
home?"

"How can you ask? And how can I reply, save in one way, after taking
the advice of yonder pirate captain, your blue-eyed nephew? He says
they always live happy ever after. Listen, Helena. Gaze upon this
waistcoat! Forget its stripes, and imagine it to be sprigged silk of a
day long gone by. Let us play that romance is not yet dead. These are
not cuffs, but ruffles at my wrists--for all Cal Davidson's
extraordinary taste in shirts. All the world lies before us, and it is
yesterday once more. The Mediterranean, Helena, how blue it is--the
Bermudas, how fine they are of a winter day! And yonder lies motley
Egypt and her sands. Or Paris, Helena; or Vienna, the voluptuous, with
her gay ways of life. Or Nagasaki, Helena--little brown folks running
about, and all the world white in blossoms. All the world, Helena,
with only you and I in it, and with not a care until, at least, we
have eaten the last of our tinned goods of the ship's supplies; since
I am poor. But if I could give you all that, would I be nice?"

"Would that s