MISS DARCY COLE sat on the edge of Red Rock, swinging twenty dollars' worth of the very smartest obtainable boots, the personal selection of Miss Gloria Greene, over two hundred feet of shimmering October air. Behind her Mr. Jacob Remsen was using the residue of the atmosphere to replenish his exhausted lungs, for he had undertaken to keep pace with his companion up the face of the declivity, with all but fatal results. It is not well for a man who has been cooped up within a city house, exerciseless and under the espionage of a minion of the law, to compete on a thirty-per-cent grade with a woman who has just come from the training of Andy Dunne.

Lack of her accustomed outdoor exercise had simply lent zest to Darcy. Three days before, the rains had descended and the floods had come and kept on coming. Now, when the skies of this mountain region set out seriously to rain, the local ducks borrow mackintoshes. Several times the visitor at the Farmhouse had ventured forth, only to be promptly beaten back to shelter.

There she would have led a lonely existence, for the bridal couples were weather-bound, and even the rural delivery was cut off (so that the promised letter from Gloria hadn't arrived), had it not been for her neighbor of the Bungalow. Each morning he waded over the soaking mile, and, of course, in such weather a decent sense of hospitality compelled his hostess to keep him for luncheon and dinner. So they had come to know each other on an inevitable footing of unconscious intimacy, better, perhaps, than they normally would have done in the conventional encounters of a year's acquaintanceship; and he played for her and she sang to him; and they discussed people and differed about art, and agreed about books and quarreled about politics and religion, and were wholly and perilously content with one another and the situation.

On the afternoon of the fourth day the sun broke gloriously through, and Darcy challenged Remsen to make the precipitous ascent of the front of Red Hill.

Behold her, then, at the conclusion serenely overlooking the lowland and the lake while her companion stretched out panting behind her.

“This is a peak on the Siberian front,” she announced. “And I'm an outpost.”

“What do you see, Sister Anne?”

“Wait and I'll tell you. An aeroplane”—she pointed to a wheeling crow above them—“has just signaled me—”

(“Caw,” said the crow; “Thank you,” said Darcy and threw the bird a kiss.)

“—that a regiment is coming up from below. There's the advance guard.”

She pointed down the sheer rock. Remsen moved across and looked over the edge. “That spider?” he inquired unimaginatively.

“He's just pretending to be a spider. But he's really a spy disguised as a spider. Now the question is, Shall I drop this bomb on him?”

She held a pebble above the toiling crawler. “War is hell,” observed Remsen lazily. “Why add to its horrors?”

“How far away it all seems!” said the girl dreamily. “Do you suppose, over there, it's beautiful and peaceful like this hillside one day, and then the next—I guess I'll let my spy spider live,” she broke off, dropping her chin in her hand.

Remsen sat down at her side.

“What's your soldier man like?” he asked abruptly.

“What? Who?” inquired the startled Darcy. “Oh, Monty!” Gloria's insufficient sketch came to her aid. “Why, he's short and round and roly-poly.”

“Then I don't give a very exact imitation of him, do I?”

“Not very. And he's red and fierce-looking, with a stubby, scrubby mustache,” she added, augmenting Gloria's description.

Her companion stared. “Not what I should call a particularly enthusiastic portaiture.”

“Oh, but of course he's awfully nice,” she made haste to amend. “Not really a bit fierce, you know, but very brave and—and” (eagerly casting about) “a lovely voice.”

“What kind?”

“Barytone.”

“And you sing together?” he asked gloomily.

“Oh, lots!”

“I suppose so.” He gathered some loose stones and began idly to drop them over the rock's crest.

“There! You've given the alarm to the spy,” she accused. “See him wigwagging at you! Now he'll go and report.”

“Darcy!”

“Well?”

“You don't mind my calling you Darcy, do you?”

“N-n-no, I like it.”

“I wonder if you'll mind what I'm going to say now.”

“I don't believe I should mind anything you would say.”

“It's about the little song. The one that you set right for me.”

“Our song.”

“Our song,” he repeated with a wistful emphasis on the pronoun. “Darcy, you won't sing that—to him—will you?”

“No,” she said. Her eyes were dimly troubled and would not meet his. “I won't sing that—to any one—again.”

“Thank you,” he said humbly.

“Oh, look!” she cried with an effort at gayety. “The enemy! They approach. Let's go and meet'em.”

She jumped to her feet and pointed to a far stretch of the road where four figures were slowly moving along.

“That means I've got to put on my infernal whiskers and wig!” he groaned.

“Just think how long a vacation you've had from them,” she reproached him.

“And my still more uncomfortable manners.”

“Tone them down a little,” she advised. “I think Holcomb and Paul are just about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher, and rend him limb from limb.”

“Don't blame'em,” he said lazily. “But they seem to be turning off toward the village,” he added, peering down into the valley.

“And the girls are coming on,” said Darcy. “Probably they've got the mail.”

“With foreign letters?” said Remsen jealously. “Did you leave a forwarding address?” She shot a swift, indirect look at him. But he was gazing out over the regally garbed forest spread below them.

“Come along!” she urged. “We must hurry. We'll take the Bungalow trail, and I'll wait while you put on your Veyze outfit. Then we'll catch the girls on their return from the Farm.” Having carried through the first part of this programme, they took the road together and presently came upon the two brides. Maud bore a folded newspaper as if it were a truncheon of official authority. Her expression was stem and important. Helen was obviously struggling with a tendency to hysterical excitement. Upon catching sight of Darcy and her escort, Maud marched with an almost military front, straight upon them, her fellow bride acting as rear guard.

“Darcy,” said Maud, ignoring the now perfectly whiskered fiance, “I should like to speak to you alone.”

A qualm of mingled intuition and caution warned Darcy.

“What about, Maud?” she asked.

“A private matter which your fiancÉ can hear later,” returned the uncompromising Maud. “Please, Darcy,” added Helen.

“Not at all,” returned the girl with spirit.' “Has it anything to do with Monty?”

“It has a great deal to do with him,” was the grim response.

“Then he should hear it at the same time.”

“Haw! By all means. Haw!” confirmed the fiancÉ, bringing his monocle to bear upon Maud and Helen in turn.

“Very well,” said Maud in a your-blood-be-on-your-own-head voice. “Read that.”

She thrust the newspaper into Darcy's hand, pointing to a penciled paragraph on the front page. To Darcy's eternal credit be it said, she succeeded in preserving a calm and unperturbed face, while she read the paragraph, and then passed it to her waiting fiancÉ.

It informed the world that, for distinguished service in the aerial corps, the King of England had, on the previous day, personally decorated Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England.