ening after
evening together watched the moon with an ever-rounder golden circle
steal up the cloudless sky. Keith was pleased to find how much
interested he was becoming. Each day he admired her more and more; and
each day he found her sweeter than she had been before. Once or twice
she spoke to him of Lois Huntington, but each time she mentioned her,
Keith turned the subject. She said that they had expected to have her
join them; but she could not leave her aunt.

"I hear she is engaged," said Keith.

"Yes, I heard that. I do not believe it. Whom did you hear it from?"

"Mrs. Nailor."

"So did I."

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE OLD IDEAL

One evening they sat on deck. Alice Lancaster had never appeared so
sweet. It happened that Mrs. Rhodes had a headache and was down below,
and Rhodes declared that he had some writing to do. So Mrs. Lancaster
and Keith had the deck to themselves.

They had been sailing for weeks among emerald isles and through waters
as blue as heaven. Even the "still-vex'd Bermoothes" had lent them their
gentlest airs.

They had left the Indies and were now approaching the American shore.
Their cruise was almost at an end, and possibly a little sadness had
crept over them both. As she had learned more and more of his life and
more and more of his character, she had found herself ready to give up
everything for him if he only gave her what she craved. But one thing
had made itself plain to Alice: Keith was not in love with her as she
knew he could be in love. If he were in love, it was with an ideal. And
her woman's intuition told her that she was not that ideal.

This evening she was unusually pensive. She had never looked lovelier or
been more gracious and charming, and as Keith thought of the past and of
the future,--the long past in which they had been friends, the long
future in which he would live alone,--his thought took the form of
resolve. Why should they not always be together? She knew that he liked
her, so he had not much to do to go further. The moon was just above the
horizon, making a broad golden pathway to them. The soft lapping of the
waves against the boat seemed to be a lullaby suited to the peacefulness
of the scene; and the lovely form before him, clad in soft raiment that
set it off; the fair face and gentle voice, appeared to fill everything
with graciousness. Keith had more than once, in the past few weeks,
considered how he would bring the subject up, and what he would