ittering with gems, closed on his arm. "Now don't
be silly," came the quick answer from sweetly protesting lips. "Every
one seems to be trying to be silly over this horrible affair--Louise,
Mr. Nugent, and now you yourself. I have just been calling Mr. Nugent
over the coals for his preposterous counsel to that misguided French
fool, and I told him what I now tell you--that my trust in your
incapacity for such a deed is invincible. I burn with indignation that
even a fool like Louise should have thought the contrary. That is why I
chanced the risk of offending you, dear, by forcing the issue."

"You have indeed forced the issue, but there is nothing in all the wide
world that you could do to offend me," said Leslie, and his
half-strangled sob carried conviction.

But Violet Maynard wanted more than conviction on a point on which she
was already convinced. She hungered for the confidence which she was too
proud to demand as her right. Yet her lover showed no sign of according
it. He just stood there staring at her, and looking half dazed in the
electric glow, but he had evidently no intention of explaining why he
was to have met Levison in the marsh, and why he had concealed the fact.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" asked Violet quietly.

And then, when her question evoked no reply, she turned and threaded her
way back amid the tangle of exotic luxuriance to the drawing-room,
leaving Leslie to follow like a man in a dream.

CHAPTER XVII

"THE BOOTLACE MAN"

On the following morning Enid Mallory, clad in a serviceable jersey and
a short skirt, and carrying her golf clubs, was walking up and down the
lawn at her father's house, perusing a letter received from Reggie by
the early delivery. She had already read it twice, once before and once
after breakfast, but like all maidens in similar cases she wanted to
make sure that she had missed none of its honey, implied or expressed.

She looked up as her father came out and joined her. "I have heard from
my young man," she said, proffering the letter. "We don't indulge in
sentiment or secrets. Read it and see how the poor boy is going to be
worked to death in serving an ungrateful country."

But Mr. Mallory waved the letter aside with one of his fugitive smiles.
"I will take your word for it, child," he said. "Those secrets used to
be considered sacred in my courting days, but I am growing
old-fashioned, I suppose. Reggie got back to his ship all right
yes