ized her.

CHAPTER XVIII

JOHN VALIANT MAKES A DISCOVERY

"I'm so sorry," was what he said, as he kneeled to release her, and she
was grateful that his tone was unmixed with amusement. She bit her lips,
as by sheer strength of elbow and knee he snapped the offending bole
short off--one of those quick exhibitions of reserved strength that
every woman likes. Meanwhile he was uttering banal fragments of
sentences: "I hope you're not hurt. It was that unmannerly dog, I
suppose. What a sword-edge that sliver has! A bad tear, I'm afraid.
There!--now it's all right."

"I don't know how I could have been so silly--thank you so much," said
Shirley, panting slightly from her exertions. "I'm not the least bit
hurt--only my dress--and you know very well that I wasn't afraid of that
ridiculous dog." A richer glow stole to her cheeks as she spoke, a
burning recollection of a rose, which from her horse that morning at
Damory Court, she had glimpsed in its glass on the porch.

Both laughed a little. He imagined that he could smell that wonderful
hair, a subtle fragrance like that of sun-dried seaweed or the elusive
scent that clings to a tuft of long-plucked Spanish moss. "Chum stands
absolved, then," he said, bending to sweep together the scattered
jessamine. "Do you--do you run like that when you're _not_ frightened?"

"When I'm caught red-handed. Don't you?"

He looked puzzled.

She pointed to the flowers. "I had stolen them, and I was trying to
''scape off wid 'em' as the negroes say. Shocking, isn't it? But you
see, nobody has lived here since long before I was born, and I suppose
the flower-thieving habit has become ingrown."

"But," he interrupted, "there's acres of them going to waste. Why on
earth shouldn't you have them?"

"Of course I know better to-day, but there was a--a special reason. We
have none and this is the nearest place where they grow. My mother
wanted some for this particular day."

"Good heavens!" he cried. "You don't think you can't go right on taking
them? Why, you can ''scape off' with the whole garden any time!"

A droll little gleam of azure mischief darted at him suddenly out of her
eyes and then dodged back again. "Aren't you just a little rash with
other people's property?"

"Other people's?"

"What will the owner say?"

He bent back one of the long jessamine stems and wound it around the
others. "I can answer for him. Besides, I owe you something, you know.
I robbed you this