in moonlight, the stone
pines--so like Italian pines--black against a silver haze. In the dark
water the path of the moon lay, very broad and long, all made of great
flakes of thick, deep gold, as if the sea were paved with golden scales.

It was so lovely it saddened me, but I didn't want to go indoors; and
presently I heard footsteps on the path. I was afraid it was Dick, after
all, as he is horribly clever about finding out where one has gone--so
detectivey of him!--but in another second I smelt Sir Lionel's kind of
cigarette smoke. It would make me think of him if it were a hundred
years from now! Still, Dick borrows his cigarettes often, as he says
they're too expensive to buy, so I wasn't safe. Indeed, _which ever_ it
turned out to be, I wasn't safe, because one might be silly, and the
other might scold.

But it was Sir Lionel, and he saw me, although I made myself little and
stood in the shadow, not daring to sit down again, because the seat
squeaked.

"Aren't you cold?" he asked.

I answered that I was quite warm.

Then he said that it was a nice night, and we talked about the weather,
and all that idiotic sort of thing, which means empty brains or hearts
too full.

By and by, when I was beginning to feel as though I should scream if it
went on much longer, he stopped suddenly, in a conversation about fresh
fish, and said: "Ellaline, I think I must speak of something that's been
on my mind for some days."

He'd never called me "Ellaline" before, but only "you," and this gave me
rather a start, to begin with, so I said nothing. And, as it turned out,
that was probably the best thing I could have done. If I'd said
anything, it would have been the wrong thing, and then, perhaps, we
should have started off with a misunderstanding.

"I should hate to have you think me unsympathetic," he went on. "I'm
not. But--do you want to marry Dick Burden, some day?"

If he'd put it differently I might have hesitated what to answer, for I
_am_ afraid of Dick, there's no use denying it--of course, mostly on
Ellaline's account, but a little on my own too, because I'm a coward,
and don't want to be disgraced. As it was, I _couldn't_ hesitate, for
the thought of marrying Dick Burden would have been insupportable if it
hadn't been ridiculous. So you see, I forgot to dread what Dick might do
if he heard, and just blurted out the truth.

"I'd sooner go into a convent," said I.

"You mean that?" Sir Lionel pinned me down.