played fair?" he asked.

"I might have expected an evasion from you!"

"Don't muddy the water, please. Let's whittle on one stick at a time.
Have you played fair?"

"Of course, I have!"

"That's all I want to know."

But this reply suggested a subtle accusation which she did not like, and
she asked:

"What do you mean?"

"Only this," he leaned so that his words could not be overheard, and his
voice was tense with a strange seriousness. "You knew perfectly well
that I was hardly to blame--and, blamable as that defense may be, what I
did was done reverently. You may not know, though I'll tell you now,
that you were the most exquisite thing I have ever beheld!--absolutely
the most adorable and exquisite! You literally balanced yourself before
my eyes, you literally taunted me with words which were a challenge of
unresisting sweetness, you literally drew me, and when I came, you flew
into a rage. You call that fair? I call it grossly unfair! Take it from
me, Jane, that a girl who willfully fires a man, as Almighty God fires
the heavens in a tempest, and then springs behind her propriety to
escape, has a serious form of pyromania that'll consume her some day,
just as sure as I'm talking to you--but not before it drives a lot of
decent fellows to eternal flames!"

"You're talking like a madman!" she gasped.

"Far from it. I'm talking the most rational stuff you ever heard in all
your life! In fact, your very presence compels me to be rational."

"An enigmatic compliment," she could not help smiling. "What kind of
deliriant have you been taking tonight?"

"You!" he whispered. "Just you, who intoxicate and torture me! And as
for enigmatic compliments, I swear that you inspire me with only the
highest reverence at all times. Don't think the library episode
indicates a lack of respect! It was the very soul of reverence
speaking--though," he slowly added, "it would not have spoken in just
that way if Zack's toddy--"

"I'm beginning to hate the very word of julep and toddy," she said
passionately; and the Colonel, hearing this, turned with an amused
expression of surprise.

Ann had let Dale off her leash, and he now was making mental charges
across the table to Jane, very much as a playful puppy would physically
have done to one it wished to attract. She caught his eye and smiled,
and then saw the haunted look in his face which aroused her at once to
what was going on.

The table had centered in a general conver