“I’m glad you’ve come, Mr. Bob White.”

“Did you dream for a moment I wouldn’t?”

“I was a little afraid you might forget your promise. No, what I was really afraid of was that you wouldn’t find a chance to steal away. You did steal away, didn’t you, ve-ry quietly?”

“I did. I sailed away, at any rate, and I didn’t tell a soul where I was bound.”

“I knew you were a reliable man.”

“How is the sprained ankle? You don’t seem to be noticeably crippled.”

“Of course not. That’s all well now—I’ve been resting in the hammock all day. But come into the house. Supper is ready, and Aunty Landis has the most delicious chocolate, with whipped cream.”

She tripped ahead of him up the pathway and into the house, calling: “Aunty Landis! Uncle Landis! Here he is. Here’s Mr. Bob White. He’s ready for supper, I’m sure.”

The long-suffering good wife met him in the living-room. “Good-evening, Mr.—ah——”

“My name is——”

“Bob White,” interrupted the girl. “Please let it be Bob White. That must be your name. Don’t you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Then that’s what we’ll call him, please, Aunty Landis. Yesterday you were Puddin’ Tame, to-day you’re Bob White, and all the time you’re really somebody else. I’ll have the fun of meeting a new man any moment I like.”

Mrs. Landis received this remark with a look as nearly approaching to sternness as she was capable of. “Betty, you must behave. Remember, you ain’t as much of a baby as the gentleman maybe takes you for.”

The girl fell silent, and seated herself upon a chintz-covered sofa. Fessenden scanned her more closely than the dusk outside had permitted him to do.

Her hair was gathered in a shining braid that hung quite to her waist, a girlish and charming fashion. Her blue eyes watched him demurely from beneath a broad, low forehead. The sailor suit of yesterday had given place to a simple white frock—Fessenden noticed that it came fairly to her ankles, now discreetly slippered and stockinged.

At the moment of seating themselves at table, they were joined by Uncle Landis, a middle-aged farmer whose preternaturally-shining face and plastered hair, not to mention a silence unbroken throughout the meal, gave plain proof of recent rigorous social instruction on the part of his help-meet.

The memory of that supper has always been a delight to Fessenden. The omelet was all golden foam; the puffed potatoes a white-and-brown cloud. The spiced cantaloupe and brandied peaches reminded him of the wonderful concoctions his Grandmother Winthrop had made—she who would never allow any one but herself to wash the glass and silver.

The hot Maryland beaten biscuits were crusty to the smoking hearts of them, withstanding his teeth’s assault just long enough to make their crumbling to fragments the more delicious. The chocolate, in blue china cups not too small, was served as the Spaniards serve it and as it ought to be served—of the consistency of molasses candy when poured into the pan.

And then came the creamy rice pudding for dessert, whereupon Fessenden won Mrs. Landis forever by asking for the receipt and gravely jotting it down in his notebook, in spite of Betty’s laughing eyes.

Betty’s talk flashed and sparkled to his sallies. She showed a self-possession remarkable in a farmer’s daughter who was encountering a man of the world for what must have been the first time in her life, as he fancied. Once or twice he felt that she had led him on to talk of himself and to expand his own ideas to a degree unusual in him.

“Betty, you’re a witch,” he declared at last. “I’ve been clattering away here like a watchman’s rattle. You can’t be interested in all this stuff about my cart-tail speeches for honest city government.”

“But I am interested, decidedly. I like to hear about men that do something—they’re a novelty.” Her frank smile warmed him. “I know there are enough worthless men in the world to make the useful ones count all the more. ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ That’s as true in Maryland as anywhere.”

“You’re a worldly-wise small person.”

“Oh, I read and think a little, Mr. Bob White.” She nodded her head at him until the blonde braid danced.

After supper Uncle Landis abruptly vanished. Aunty Landis lingered in the dining-room on the plea of clearing off the supper things—in point of fact, Fessenden saw her no more that night. Betty led the way to a couple of steamer-chairs at a corner of the porch.

The breeze had freshened a little, and he tucked her knitted scarf about her shoulders with a care not altogether fatherly.

“Thank you, Bob White. You’re very kind.”

“Who wouldn’t be kind to you, Betty? Look there! Over the top of the hill. Even the stars are peeping out to see if you’re comfortable.”

She gave her little crowing laugh. “What a poet! I always think of Emerson’s verse about the stars. Do you remember it?

“Where did you learn Emerson?”

“I had a teacher who liked him.”

“Did any one ever tell you that you talk as a prima donna ought to talk, but never does—‘soft, gentle, and low’?”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Certainly. Perhaps you sing.”

“I’ll get my guitar.”

She flashed into the house and back again. The starlight enabled him to see her indistinctly as she tightened the keys of a small guitar.

“I like this song,” she explained. “It was written by Fessenden, you know.”

“By whom?”

“Thomas Fessenden, the Fessenden, the man who——”

“Oh, of course.”

To hear himself thus referred to, to hear one of his own casual songs launched from the lips of a country girl in the splendor of a Maryland night, was a novel experience even for Fessenden. He realized with amusement that his identity was wholly unknown to Betty, that capricious young person not having allowed him as yet to mention his own name.

She sang, her eyes laughing upon him as her lips rounded to the whistle of the quail in the refrain.

Fessenden applauded softly, and his young hostess smiled appreciation.

“Tell me about yourself, Bob White,” she said. “Are you ‘tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’?”

“Betty, perhaps you can tell me something. I got away to you without letting any one at Sandywood know, by going for a sail in my sloop.”

“A ve-ry good idea.”

“Don’t be too sure. After I’d gotten well off, one of the house-party—a girl—coolly appeared from the cabin. She’d been bound to come with me, you see.”

“Why?”

“That’s the problem. She was very mysterious, and persistent, no name! When we landed in Piney Cove, she insisted upon following me.”

“Goodness me!”

“We had the most extraordinary time—I fastened her in the cabin by main force. I don’t understand it at all. She said she knew I was coming to meet you, and seemed very much wrought up about it. Hold on! She didn’t mention your name, but she said she knew who it was I had my appointment with.”

“How could she guess?”

“We happened to be standing together when your little friend, Jimmy Jones, brought your note. She said this afternoon that she recognized the style of the envelope.”

Betty’s guitar slipped from her lap to the floor. “Bob White, Bob White!” she exclaimed. “What’s her name?”

“Didn’t I say? She’s a Miss Yarnell—Miss Madge Yarnell, from Baltimore. Do you know anything about her?”

The girl stooped to rescue the guitar. Her warm cheek touched his as he, too, groped for it, and both recoiled a little consciously—Fessenden in amusement at his own confusion.

“Do you know about Miss Yarnell?” he repeated.

“I’ve heard her name. A girl—the woman who gave me that song—knows who she is. Isn’t she the girl who tore down the flag?”

“Yes, that’s the one. Can you imagine why she pursued me so? Do you suppose she really recognized your writing paper? And even if she did, what is it to her?”

She twanged a careless chord or two. “Oh, perhaps she was vexed because you didn’t stay at the house-party,” she suggested; “because you preferred White Cottage to Sandywood.”

After a while he struck a match and looked at his watch. “Nine o’clock. I must be going. If I stay much longer, the Cresaps will be sending out their launch to tow me home. You know, I’m supposed to be becalmed out in the bay. I hate to go. I’ve had a bully time.”

“Really?”

“Perfect. Betty, look here! I’m staying at Sandywood only until Tuesday, and to-day’s Friday. H-i-n-t!”

She rose and made him an adorable curtsy. “Bob White, Esquire, I respectfully invite you to come to my picnic to-morrow.”

“Will there be a picnic, really?”

“Yes—for you and me.”

“Great! I’ll come, and humbly thank you.”

“Then you must be at the foot of the lane by the brook at ten o’clock to-morrow morning. And it’s another secret, remember. Do you think you can get away?”

“I will get away. Perhaps I can invent a business letter that will call me to Baltimore.”

She clapped her hands. “Oh, I’ll attend to that. You know Jimmy Jones is really the Sandywood Station telegraph boy, and he’ll do anything for me.”

“I don’t doubt it. There’s at least one other person in the same happy condition.”

“Haven’t you a friend in Baltimore who might possibly send you a telegram—somebody so real you could just show it to the Cresaps, and they’d believe it? What fun!”

He chuckled. “This is a real conspiracy. The only friend the Cresaps and I have in common is Danton.”

“Who?”

“Charles Danton. D-a-n-t-o-n.”

“I’ll remember.”

“All right. At ten o’clock to-morrow, at the foot of the lane. You’ll meet me there, honest Injun, Betty?”

“Honest Injun! Hope I may die!”

She had followed him to the edge of the porch and stood looking down at him as he lingered a couple of steps below.

“Good-night, Betty.”

Her hand slipped into his outstretched palm. “Good-night, Bob White.”

“I’ve had a lovely time.”

“So have I.”

He had not released her hand, and now she leaned toward him until the great braid of her hair fell across her breast.

“Bob White, I’m rather sorry I was so—so violent yesterday, when you were carrying me and—and did what you did.”

She was so close to him that he felt her hair brush his forehead. The blood was pounding in his ears, and his throat was parched. He lifted his left hand slowly to her neck to draw her lips to his. Then, all at once, he steadied himself.

“Oh, you little witch!” he said. “I swear I don’t know whether you’re an innocent or a demon. No, no, Betty! The next time I kiss you, you must ask me outright, not merely look at me! Do you ask me?”

She snatched her hand away. “Certainly not. Never!”

“Good-night, then.”

“Good-night, Bob White.”

She stood motionless until he was lost in the darkness, then whistled softly: