east balcony and tell me
what troubles you."

She considered him, smilingly suspicious of his alacrity.

"I don't think we had better go to the balcony." "Shiela, can't you ever
get over being ashamed when I make love to you?"

"I don't want to get over it, Garry."

"Are you still afraid to let me love you?"

Her mouth curved gravely as a perplexed child's; she looked down at the
table where his sun-burnt hand now lay lightly across hers.

"I wished to speak to you about myself--if, somehow you could help me to
say what--what is very difficult for a girl to say to a man--even when
she loves him.... I don't think I can say it, but I'll try."

"Then if you'll come to the balcony--"

"No, I can't trust you--or myself--unless we promise each other."

"Have I got to do that again?"

"Yes, if I am to go with you. I promise! Do you?"

"If I must," he said with very bad grace--so ungraciously in fact that
as they passed from the eastern corridor on to the Spanish balcony she
forgot her own promise and slipped her hand into his in half-humourous,
half-tender propitiation.

"Are you going to be disagreeable to me, Garry?"

"You darling!" he said; and, laughing, yet secretly dismayed at her own
perversion, she hurriedly untwisted her fingers from his and made a new
and fervid promise to replace the one just broken.

The moonlight was magnificent, silvering forest, dune, and chaparral.
Far to the east a thin straight gleam revealed the sea.

She seated herself under the wall, lying back against it; he lay
extended on the marble shelf beside her, studying the moonlight on her
face.

"What was it you had to tell me, Shiela? Remember I am going in the
morning."

"I've turned cowardly; I cannot tell you.... Perhaps later.... Look at
the Seminole moon, Garry. They have such a pretty name for it in
March--Tau-sau-tchusi--'Little Spring Moon'! And in May they call it the
'Mulberry Moon'--Kee-hassi, and in November it is a charming
name--Hee-wu-li--'Falling Leaf Moon'!--and August is Hyothlucco--'Big
Ripening Moon.' ... Garry, this moonlight is filling my veins with
quicksilver. I feel very restless, very heathenish." ... She cast a
slanting side-glance at him, lips parting with soundless laughter; and
in the witchery of the moon she seemed exquisitely unreal, head tipped
back, slender throat and shoulders snow-white in the magic lustre that
enveloped them.

Resting one bare arm on the marble she turned, chin on sho