Mrs. Wilbur looked back into the hall from the piazza before she stepped into the motor. Diana was already dancing with Philip Barrison. She watched their smooth movements for a minute, then turned to Mrs. Lowell who had just emerged with her boy.

"This—this gathering, this settlement here, seems rather like a family party, doesn't it?" she said, with a sort of troubled curiosity.

"Yes; nearly all of these people have known each other for many summers."

"I feel a little strange to go and leave Diana."

"I don't think you need," replied Mrs. Lowell.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Wilbur, "if the steed were going to be stolen, it would have happened before this. The stable door has been open for weeks."

"Quite so," said Mrs. Lowell, laughing. "It is so light, Bert and I are going to walk up to the Inn."

"I am going to send the car back for Diana in one hour," declared Mrs. Wilbur. Her daughter's theories were all very well, but this was a distractingly beautiful night and the echoes of that marvelous voice were even yet thrilling her own nerves. LÉonie was sitting at the front of the car with Bill Lindsay, and Mrs. Wilbur mounted into the back seat with Miss Burridge.

"I suppose Miss Veronica will return with my daughter," she said.

"I only hope so," returned Miss Burridge resignedly. "Mr. Kelly has promised to see to her."

"I don't feel like dancing," said Diana, as her partner guided her through the narrow spaces.

"No one would suspect it," he replied. "I was just thinking that this night was to be superlative in all directions."

"But how can one endure this silly music when 'Manon! Manon!' is echoing through the heart!"

Philip did not reply, nor did he release her until the gay strumming at the piano ceased. Then they went out on the piazza. The laughing, chattering young people were streaming out into the air, and occupying every available seat. The field surrounding the hall was light as day.

"Let us go down to the rocks," said Philip.

"I mustn't because my mother is going to send the car back for me in one hour. You've no idea how firmly my mother can say 'one hour' and mean it."

"There should be no rules on a night like this," Philip regarded his companion, pale in the moonlight as her pale, filmy garments. "I feel like quoting a choice spirit of my childhood days. He was trying to get me to go on a tear of some kind with him, and I told him my mother would worry. He said, 'Oh, come on. Scoldings don't hurt, whippings don't last long, and she da'sn't kill you.'"

Diana smiled. "Now that she is here, she likes to tuck me in," she said.

"I would she had waited until after the moon. Well, let us go to the near rocks. I will keep watch of the time."

They went down the populous steps.

"Oh, Mr. Barrison!" exclaimed a woman upon whom he nearly trod. "What ecstasy you have given us!"

It was Miss Emerson. She was cooling off from a dance with Mr. Pratt, and was in high feather, because neither he nor Mr. Evans knew another woman present, save Veronica, and her acquaintance, though not wide, seemed intensive.

"Yes, that was corking," said Mr. Evans. "We sure do thank you. Say, folks, I'm tired. I'm going to trot along."

"Back to the Inn?" asked Philip with interest.

"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"

"If you will be so kind. Mrs. Wilbur has just gone. Will you be kind enough to tell her not to worry if her daughter is a little later than she expected? Tell her you left her in good hands and we are going to walk up after a while."

"Certainly. Be glad to," replied Evans.

"Oh," breathed Diana, softly, as they moved on into the glory of the night, "I'm quite sure you should not have done that."

"Do you want to be shut up in a tin Lizzie to-night?"

"No, nor anywhere."

Philip led her to the shore and found a corner among the rocks from which they could watch the beaten silver of the billows rushing tumultuously landward, breaking in foam about their eyrie, and slipping back in myriad bridal veils.

"There is always one night in the summer, and this is the night," said Philip. "Think of viewing the moon in company with the goddess herself! If you only wouldn't mind leaning against my arm. I'm sorry to have that rock cutting into your dandy gown."

"Thank you, but it doesn't. I have a very good place here."

"Comfortable enough to tell me that you liked the music?"

Diana looked around at him slowly, and he laughed softly.

"Yes, I know you did. I know if I ever could sing, I sang to-night. There was something new in it. It taught me something, something I've been waiting for. They've always told me, my teachers, that the one thing I needed was to fall in love. It must have happened—happened, somehow, when I wasn't looking." Philip crossed his arms behind his head, leaned back and looked at the high sailing moon. "Thank you, great goddess Diana, I am at your feet. You have dropped upon me a spark of the divine fire. I build you an altar. The flame shall never go out."

The girl beside him bit her lip and silence fell between them. The bright billows swept in and crashed apart.

"I suppose that is what love means to an artist," she said at last. "The nourishing of his art. That is all."

"That is all it can mean to me," he answered; "but isn't it enough? An object to worship with all a man's strength, receiving the return of inspiration?"

She looked at him as he lay there reclining against the rock, his upturned face not seeking hers. This evening had shown her in miniature the truth of all she had felt and, because her heart was beating fast, she clung more strongly than ever to the spectacled gentleman with the scanty hair.

"Say something, divine one," he said suddenly, turning to her.

"Don't confuse me with the moon, Mr. Barrison," she warned him.

"But at least can't you congratulate me?"

"Yes, I can, on many things; but—don't fall in love with any ideal less impersonal than a planet."

"I don't intend to, but why these words of wisdom?"

"Because any—any mere mortal girl married to you would be miserable."

"Oh, come, now!" Philip sat up, and frowned at her with a quizzical smile. "So you think I ought to try kindness first, do you? Why?"

Diana turned her fair moonlit face directly to him. "Because you cannot ever belong to yourself, even. Much less to her."

"I don't quite get that."

"I can't speak for all girls, but for myself, if I ever have a husband, I want—I want to creep off into a corner with him."

"A corner like this rock?"

"This is big enough."

"How would that suit the great Charles Wilbur?"

"It would not suit him. I know that. The homely little stoop-shouldered man, with the lovely soul, whom I mean to marry, will not altogether please my father."

Philip's eyes grew big in the moonlight. "Have you picked him out?"

"Yes, as an ideal. Other women will leave me in possession of him."

"Ah," Philip nodded, "I begin to see." They were both silent again. At last Philip spoke again. "I deny that that girl you are warning me away from would have such a rocky time. What do you suppose I should care for the babble, no matter how kind it was, how sweet even, of other women? I should see only her."

"You think so," said Diana. "I know you think so. And at first it would probably be so, but a singer's appetite for flattery grows. Of course it does. I'm not blaming you. It's just your career."

Silence again, until Philip spoke. "Very well, I shall hunt you out in your corner with your faithful gnome, and I shall beg: (he sang) 'Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine.'"

Philip sang the song entirely through, slowly and deliberately, and Diana closed her eyes, and the laces on her sleeve trembled. The glory of the night, the glory of the voice were all one. She shrank into her corner and held desperately to her ideal.

When he had finished, Philip looked at her. Her head rested back upon the rock, her eyes were closed. The mysterious light lent her face a strange radiance.

"Diana," he said, and there was a thrill in his voice, "you are well named. Goddess of the moon you certainly are, and this night is an epoch in my life. I love, and in spite of your skepticism I shall be true." She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he drew a long, quick breath. "I can't let you stay here any longer. Your wrap isn't enough. Now we will sprint up to the Inn. Do you feel like it?"

"Oh, is it over?" she said softly.

"Yes, or else it has just begun. I am not sure which," he answered, and rising he gave her his hand and helped her to her feet. "The moon is no farther away from me than you," he said in the moment while he held her hand. "I am not going to forget it."

"Then it is I!" she thought, with a bound of the heart that turned her faint.

They scarcely spoke on the long, heavenly walk up the island. The sea was starry as the sky with the lights of fishing boats, and phosphorescence gleamed where the water was in shadow.

When he took her hand for good-night on the piazza of the Inn, she said: "I haven't thanked you for this wonderful evening. You know I do—Philomel."

He smiled down at her. "That reminds me of our first meeting here. 'Philomel with melody,' you said. I remember what I had been singing, too. It is still true." He kissed her hand, jumped over the piazza rail, narrowly missing the sweet peas, and strode away. The girl stood in the shadow watching the tall, white figure and listening to the waves of song that floated back through the moonlight.

"What shall I do!" murmured the poor, bewildered moon-goddess on the piazza. "What shall I do!"