You've guessed, I
suppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. She thinks
she's tried everything else,--now it's her idea to get me safely
married. She'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what
we're saying!"

"Well, it _would_ be a good thing for you," remarked Sylvia, as
entirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing the
tennis game.

He was tickled by her coolness. "Well, Madrina sure made a mistake
when she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. And then, not
having been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which caused
Sylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel
her there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight.
He leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "See here, Sylvia,
why _don't_ you try it!"

"Oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, not
stirring. "You don't care a bit for me."

"Yes, I do! I've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving till
after the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her own
phrase.

She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmth
dashed, extinguished. "The fact is, Sylvia," he said, "you're too nice
a girl to fall in love with."

"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed.

"About _you_?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment."

"About falling in love," she said.

"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning.

"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh,
we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and
ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them.

He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing.
"Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turned
me down?" he said.

"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he.

"It's the nearest _I_ ever came to it!" he averred.

She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling
with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'll
have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of
it!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern
conversation ended.

CHAPTER XXIII

MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS

When they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of one
another, a merry and shadowless laugh. For an instant they looked like
light-hearted children. The change of Arnol