laugh at each other in the
moonlight," he said.

She glanced up; then away from him:

"You seem to be enamoured of the moonlight," she said.

"I like to prowl in it."

"Alone?"

"Sometimes."

"And--at other times?"

He laughed: "Oh, I'm past that, as you reminded me a moment ago."

"Then you _did_ misunderstand me!"

"Why, no--"

"Yes, you did! But I supposed you knew."

"Knew what, Eileen?" "What I meant."

"You meant that I am _hors de concours_."

"I didn't!"

"But I am, child. I was, long ago."

She looked up: "Do you really think that, Captain Selwyn? If you do--I
am glad."

He laughed outright. "You are glad that I'm safely past the spooning
age?" he inquired, moving forward.

She halted: "Yes. Because I'm quite sure of you if you are; I mean that
I can always keep you for myself. Can't I?"

She was smiling and her eyes were clear and fearless, but there was a
wild-rose tint on her cheeks which deepened a little as he turned short
in his tracks, gazing straight at her.

"You wish to keep me--for yourself?" he repeated, laughing.

"Yes, Captain Selwyn."

"Until you marry. Is that it, Eileen?"

"Yes, until I marry."

"And then we'll let each other go; is that it?"

"Yes. But I think I told you that I would never marry. Didn't I?"

"Oh! Then ours is to be a lifelong and anti-sentimental contract!"

"Yes, unless _you_ marry."

"I promise not to," he said, "unless you do."

"I promise not to," she said gaily, "unless you do."

"There remains," he observed, "but one way for you and I ever to marry
anybody. And as I'm _hors de concours_, even that hope is ended."

She flushed; her lips parted, but she checked what she had meant to say,
and they walked forward together in silence for a while until she had
made up her mind what to say and how to express it:

"Captain Selwyn, there are two things that you do which seem to me
unfair. You still have, at times, that far-away, absent expression which
excludes me; and when I venture to break the silence, you have a way of
answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, child'--as though you were
inattentive, and I had not yet become an adult. _That_ is my first
complaint! . . . _What_ are you laughing at? It is true; and it confuses
and hurts me; because I _know_ I am intelligent enough and old enough
to--to be treated as a woman!--a woman attractive enough to be reckoned
with! But I never seem to be wholly so to you."

The laugh died out as she en