ments, crossed the level, one from north
to south, the other from east to west. The verge upon which they stood
had once been a road also, though now narrowed and in some places
blocked by the bushes which had grown across it. "A little farther on,
beyond that point, you will find our ruin," said Garda. "There will not
be time to sketch it, I will wait for you here."

"You are deserting me very soon."

"I am not deserting you at all, I intend to take you remorselessly over
the entire place. But there are thorns in those bushes, and thorns are
dangerous."

"I know it, I am already wounded."

"I mean that the briers might tear my dress," explained Miss Thorne,
with dignity.

This stately rejection of so small and, as it were, self-made a pun
entertained her companion highly; it showed how unfamiliar she was with
the usual commonplaces. Talking with her would be not unlike talking
with a princess in a fairy tale--one of those who have always lived
mysteriously imprisoned in a tower; such a damsel, regarding her own
rank, would be apt to have a standard which might strike the first comer
as fantastically high. His entertainment, however, was not visible as,
with a demeanor modelled upon the requirements of her dignity, he bent
back the thorny bushes of the green cape, and made a passageway for her
round its point. When his little roadway was finished, she came over it
with her leisurely step, as though (he said to himself) it and the whole
world, including his own poor individuality, belonged to her by
inherited right, whenever she should choose to claim them. He was well
aware that he was saying to himself a good many things about this girl;
but was it not natural--coming unexpectedly upon so much beauty, set in
so unfamiliar a frame? It was a new portrait, and he was fond of
portraits; in picture-galleries he always looked more at the portraits
than at anything else.

On the opposite side of the thorny cape the ruin came into view,
standing back in a little arena of its own. Two of its high stone walls
remained upright, irregularly broken at the top, and over them clambered
a vine with slender leaves and long curling sprays that thrust
themselves boldly out into the air, covered with bell-shaped, golden
blossoms. This was the yellow jessamine, the lovely wild jessamine of
Florida.

"You will look at it, please, from the other side," announced Garda; "it
looks best from there. There will not be time to sketch it."