ouldn't get hold of it."

"And to become imbecile," he said, "I've only to shave it."

She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the silence. He
laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, dabbling the crinkled
leader to and fro in the pool below.

"So you won't have me?" he said.

"You haven't asked me--have you?"

"Well, I do now."

She mused, the smile resting lightly on lips and eyes.

"_Wouldn't_ such a thing astonish Nina!" she said.

He did not answer; a slight colour tinged the new sunburn on his cheeks.

She laughed to herself, clasped her hands, crossed her slender feet, and
bent her eyes on the pool below.

"Marriage," she said, pursuing her thoughts aloud, "is curiously
unnecessary to happiness. Take our pleasure in each other, for example.
It has, from the beginning, been perfectly free from silliness and
sentiment."

"Naturally," he said. "I'm old enough to be safe."

"You are not!" she retorted. "What a ridiculous thing to say!"

"Well, then," he said, "I'm dreadfully unsafe, but yet you've managed to
escape. Is that it?"

"Perhaps. You _are_ attractive to women! I've heard that often enough to
be convinced. Why, even I can see what attracts them"--she turned to
look at him--"the way your head and shoulders set--and--well, the--rest.
. . . It's rather superior of me to have escaped sentiment, don't you
think so?"

"Indeed I do. Few--few escape where many meet to worship at my frisky
feet, and this I say without conceit is due to my mustachios. Tangled in
those like web-tied flies, imprisoned hearts complain in sighs--in fact,
the situation vies with moments in Boccaccio."

Her running comment was her laughter, ringing deliciously amid the trees
until a wild bird, restlessly attentive, ventured a long, sweet response
from the tangled green above them.

After their laughter the soberness of reaction left them silent for a
while. The wild bird sang and sang, dropping fearlessly nearer from
branch to branch, until in his melody she found the key to her dreamy
thoughts.

"Because," she said, "you are so unconscious of your own value, I like
you best, I think. I never before quite realised just what it was in
you."

"My value," he said, "is what you care to make it."

"Then nobody can afford to take you away from me, Captain Selwyn."

He flushed with pleasure: "That is the prettiest thing a woman ever
admitted to a man," he said.

"You have said nicer things to me