fer that I am either not in love or incapable of it, or too
ignorant of it to know what I'm talking about. That, Mr. Siward, is what
you have done to me to-night."

"I--I'm sorry--"

"Are you?"

"I ought to be anyway," he said.

It was unfortunate; an utterly inexcusable laughter seemed to bewitch
them, hovering always close to his lips and hers.

"How can you laugh!" she said. "How dare you! I don't care for you
nearly as violently as I did, Mr. Siward. A friendship between us would
not be at all good for me. Things pass too swiftly--too intimately.
There is too much mockery in you--" She ceased suddenly, watching
the sombre alteration of his face; and, "Have I hurt you?" she asked
penitently.

"No."

"Have I, Mr. Siward? I did not mean it." The attitude, the words,
slackening to a trailing sweetness, and then the moment's silence,
stirred him.

"I'm rather ignorant myself of violent emotion," he said. "I suspect
normal people are. You know better than I do whether love is usually a
sedative."

"Am I normal--after what I have confessed?" she asked. "Can't love be
well-bred?"

"Perfectly I should say--only perhaps you are not an expert--"

"In what?"

"In self-analysis, for example."

There was a vague meaning in the gaze they exchanged.

"As for our friendship, we'll do the best we can for it, no matter what
occurs," he added, thinking of Quarrier. And, thinking of him, glanced
up to see him within ear-shot and moving straight toward them from the
veranda above.

There was a short silence; a tentative civil word from Siward; then Miss
Landis took command of something that had a grotesque resemblance to a
situation. A few minutes later they returned slowly to the house, the
girl walking serenely between Siward and her preoccupied affianced.

"If your shoes are as wet as my skirts and slippers you had better
change, Mr. Siward," she said, pausing at the foot of the staircase.

So he took his conge, leaving her standing there with Quarrier, and
mounted to his room.

In the corridor he passed Ferrall, who had finished his business
correspondence and was returning to the card-room.

"Here's a letter that Grace wants you to see," he said. "Read it before
you turn in, Stephen."

"All right; but I'll be down later," replied Siward passing on, the
letter in his hand. Entering his room he kicked off his wet pumps and
found dry ones. Then moved about, whistling a gay air from some recent
vaudeville, b