tering voice, "what secrets Drina
heard. I think I'd better ask her--"

"You had better not! Besides, _I_ said nothing at all."

"But Nina did."

She nodded, lying there, arms raised, hands clasping the upholstered
wings of the big chair, and gazing at him out of indolent, amused eyes.

"Would you like to know what Nina was saying to me?" she asked.

"I'd rather hear what you said to her."

"I told you that I said nothing."

"Not a word?" he insisted.

"Not a word."

"Not even a sound?"

"N--well--I won't answer that."

"Oho!" he laughed. "So you did make some sort of inarticulate reply!
Were you laughing or weeping?"

"Perhaps I was yawning. How do you know?" she smiled.

After a moment he said, still curious: "_Why_ were you crying, Eileen?"

"Crying! I didn't say I was crying."

"I assume it."

"To prove or disprove that assumption," she said coolly, amused, "let us
hunt up a motive for a possible display of tears. What, Captain Selwyn,
have I to cry about? Is there anything in the world that I lack?
Anything that I desire and cannot have?"

"_Is_ there?" he repeated.

"I asked you, Captain Selwyn."

"And, unable to reply," he said, "I ask you."

"And I," she retorted, "refuse to answer."

"Oho! So there _is_, then, something you lack? There _is_ a motive for
possible tears?"

"You have not proven it," she said.

"You have not denied it."

She tipped back her head, linked her fingers under her chin, and looked
at him across the smooth curve of her cheeks.

"Well--yes," she admitted, "I was crying--if you insist on knowing. Now
that you have so cleverly driven me to admit that, can you also force me
to tell you _why_ I was so tearful?"

"Certainly," he said promptly; "it was something Nina said that made you
cry."

They both laughed.

"Oh, what a come-down!" she said teasingly. "You knew that before. But
can you force me to confess to you _what_ Nina was saying? If you can
you are the cleverest cross-examiner in the world, for I'd rather perish
than tell you--"

"Oh," he said instantly, "then it was something about love!"

He had not meant to say it; he had spoken too quickly, and the flush of
surprise on the girl's face was matched by the colour rising to his own
temples. And, to retrieve the situation, he spoke too quickly again--and
too lightly.

"A girl would rather perish than admit that she is in love?" he said,
forcing a laugh. "That is rather a clever deduction, I thi