"If you had only told me that then."

"I had no time. My first thought was to tell my cousin the truth, but I
was afraid to take a chance on him. The only way to save Curly was to
take back the money myself. I couldn't be sure that Captain Kilmeny
would believe my story. So I played it safe and helped myself."

"You must think a lot of your friend to go so far for him."

"His mother turned him over to me to make a man of him, and if she
hadn't I owed it to his father's son."

Her eyes poured upon him their warm approving light. "Yes, you would
have to help him, no matter what it cost."

He protested against heroics with a face crinkled to humor. "It wasn't
costing me a cent."

"It might have cost you a great deal. Suppose that Captain Kilmeny had
picked up his gun. You couldn't have shot him."

"I'd have told him who I was and why I must have the money. No, Miss
Dwight, I don't fit the specifications of a hero."

Moya's lips curved to the sweet little derisive twist that was a smile
in embryo. "I know about you, sir."

Kilmeny took his eyes from her to let them rest upon a man and a woman
walking the river trail below. The man bowed and the Westerner answered
the greeting by lifting his hat. When he looked back at his companion he
was smiling impishly. For the two by the river bank were Lord and Lady
Farquhar.

"Caught! You naughty little baggage! I wonder whether you'll be smacked
this time."

Her eyes met his in a quick surprise that was on the verge of hauteur.

"Sir."

"Yes, I think you'll be smacked. You know you've been told time and
again not to take up with strange boys--and Americans, at that. Mith
Lupton warned you on the _Victorian_--and Lady Farquhar has warned you
aplenty."

Her lips parted to speak, but no sound came from them. She was on the
verge of a discovery, and he knew it.

"Hope you won't mind the smacking much. Besides, it would be somefing
else if it wasn't this," he continued, mimicking a childish lisp he had
never forgotten.

"Miss Lupton!"

A fugitive memory flashed across her mind. What she saw was this: a
glassy sea after sunset, the cheerful life on the deck of an ocean
liner, a little girl playing at--at--why, at selling stars of her own
manufacture. The picture began to take form. A boy came into it, and
vaguely other figures. She recalled impending punishment, intervention,
two children snuggled beneath a steamer rug, and last the impulsive kiss
of a little girl de