tly, not knowing why.

"The pleasure in it," she said, "is the certainty that I am capable of
making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do it. I've wanted to
ever since I knew you--I've wanted to be capable of doing it. And you
tell me that I do; and I am utterly and foolishly happy." The quick
mischievous sparkle of _gaminerie_ flashed up, transforming her for an
instant--"Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, by talking
of marriage! That, too, is something--a delightful power--but"--the
malice dying to a spark in her brilliant eyes--"I shall not torment
you, Captain Selwyn. Will it make you happier if I say, 'No; I shall
never marry as long as I have you'? Will it really? Then I say it;
never, never will I marry as long as I have your confidence and
friendship. . . . But I want it _all_!--every bit, please. And if ever
there is another woman--if ever you fall in love!--crack!--away I
go"--she snapped her white fingers--"like that!" she added, "only
quicker! Well, then! Be very, very careful, my friend! . . . I wish
there were some place here where I could curl up indefinitely and listen
to your views on life. You brought a book to read, didn't you?"

He gave her a funny embarrassed glance: "Yes; I brought a sort of a
book."

"Then I'm all ready to be read to, thank you. . . . Please steady me
while I try to stand up on this log--one hand will do--"

Scarcely in contact with him she crossed the log, sprang blithely to the
ground, and, lifting the hem of her summer gown an inch or two, picked
her way toward the bank above.

"We can see Nina when she signals us from the lawn to come to luncheon,"
she said, gazing out across the upland toward the silvery tinted
hillside where Silverside stood, every pane glittering with the white
eastern sunlight.

In the dry, sweet grass she found a place for a nest, and settled into
it, head prone on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows skyward, and
fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, the knee, doubled,
making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge of which a russet shoe
projected, revealing the contour of a slim ankle.

"What book did you bring?" she asked dreamily.

He turned red: "It's--it's just a chapter from a little book I'm trying
to write--a--a sort of suggestion for the establishment of native
regiments in the Philippines. I thought, perhaps, you might not mind
listening--"

Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite o