"I trust you've not been getting into trouble, Mr. Lightnut!"

Her lovely eyes were dancing with mischief as they hung there below mine—eyes, bluer than the Hudson at our feet; yet between the jolly ripples that played across those pools of truth I could glimpse far down into depths that were the most devilishly entrancing, darkly, deeply, beautifully—oh, you know!

Why, by Jove, I almost took a cropper right into them! Only caught just in time, you know; straightened right on the verge, as it were—and came up with a gasp, monocle dangling.

Had almost forgotten the dashed windows—and the two cats that might be looking out!

I murmured some jolly apology, adding:

"Oh, yes—quite so; certainly! I mean—eh what?"

She was smiling, her rose-petal lip dragging through her teeth.

"The 'bobby,' you know, just now"—she nodded toward the porte-cochÈre—"I was positive he had come to drag you away to your loathsome dungeon. And when he retired, I was—oh, so relieved!" And she clasped her hands, her eyes lifting upward.

"Oh, I say now—were you, though?" I grinned delightedly and slipping to a rustic chair beside her, looked her affectionately in the eye. For all her air of chaffing, I knew that under it was a current of anxiety for me—the darling!

I screwed my glass at her tenderly.

"What would you have done," I said softly, "if he had—er—lugged me off, you know?"

"Can you ask?" What a reproachful side-glance she shot me through the meshes of her silken what-you-call-'ems! "Why, of course, I should have drawn my good excalibar and run him thr-r-rough and thr-r-r-ough!"

By Jove, how she said it! And she illustrated with the stemless rose—dash it, no; the roseless stem! She was superb—looked like the jolly fencing girl; only a dashed sight more stunning, don't you know! And her excalibar, too! Didn't know what a jolly excalibar was, but guessed it was some delightfully mysterious but deadly feminine thing—some kind of submerged hat-pin-sort-of-thing, you know—that sort, dash it! Yet she would have drawn it—and her good one, too, she said!

"Jove!" I said feelingly. "Would you, really?" And I almost took her hand—and again remembered the windows! So I just shot her a look.

Her glorious eyes sparkled. "That is, I would if I had one," she said smiling; "but I'm afraid poor Arthur lost the last and only one. Sad, isn't it?"

"Oh!"

I just felt my jolly heart sink like what's-its-name. Who the deuce was "poor Arthur?" This must be another—some other thundering chap who had been engaged to her. And what a rotten, careless beggar, too, to have lost it—that is, if he really had! Of course, he would say so, anyhow. And how the deuce did he get it, in the first place—did she give it to him, or did he—

By Jove, how I should have liked to punch Arthur's head! Always did hate a chap with that name! I flushed guiltily, but she did not see. For the moment, she was looking off dreamily across the valley.

"I wonder," she said pensively, "why it is one can never find another man like Arthur. Do you suppose it is because he was the ideal?"

For an instant, I swallowed hard—then I plucked up bravely, or tried to, don't you know.

"Jolly likely!" I chirped. Then gloomily: "Oh, I say, you know, was he your ideal?"

"Always!"—the blue eyes lighted wistfully—"I suppose it's because he was my first love; I found him so brave, so noble-mannered, you know—so simple!"

Simple! Dash simple people—never could stand them! Thing I admired was brains! Aloud I said gently—almost humbly:

"So glad you like him, don't you know—did like, I mean!"

"Did like? I do still!"—her tone lifted in earnest protest—"I love to think of brave, dear Arthur and his knights—so few, and yet so full of love, of gallantry and daring!"

So his nights were like that! By Jove, I was devilish glad then that they had been so few—that was some comfort, dash it! I wondered if the beggar was dead. But what difference did it make now, after all? She was mine now and she knew I knew it; that was why this sweet, ingenuous child was laying bare to me her past—the darling!

Really, I ought not to let her go on.

"Never mind them now," I urged soothingly. And heedless of the windows, I hitched a wee bit closer. "That's all past and gone and you and I will yet see as good nights as they ever were." I spoke with assurance. "Don't you think so?" I added softly.

She sighed. "I don't know—I hope so!"—she lingered dubiously over it, looking away again, the while her hand put back the fleecy, golden what-you-call-it that was snuggling to her eyes. I looked at the goddess-like forearm, bared to above the elbow, where it slipped from sight under the roll of sleeve, and thought of that night in my apartment when she had made me feel of her biceps, don't you know.

How deliciously shy she was! Remembered hearing Pugsley say they are often that way with the development of love. Told me he thought he'd get married once—looked over the girls of his set and picked out one; then he went to see her. She was devilish cordial at first and until Pugsley began to tell her about it, then she began to grow agitated—finally went out of the room and had hysterics. Next time he saw her she hardly was able to speak to him! Said that ended it and he passed her up—too dashed much bother trying to follow 'em, he decided; they were too high-strung, too emotional, too uncertain of themselves, he thought.

I gave her five seconds, and then—

"You don't know?" I repeated with gentle reproach. "Oh, I say, you know! You know you know you know!" By Jove, that sounded rather rum, but I knew she knew I knew she knew—see?

She looked at me sidewise, her slender forefinger pressing the half-parted lips slowly shaping in a curve. Then her little teeth flashed, jewel-like—regular jolly pearl setting in the frankest, sweetest smile!—and then her glorious arm and wrist arched suddenly toward me.

"Yes!" she said contritely, and with the most delightful, kindest inflection and laugh—such a laugh!—a laugh gurglingly melodious—oh, dash it, yes; I mean just that!—like the flute notes in the overture to what's-his-name—that sort!

"That's the way I love to hear a man talk!" she said warmly. "I think it takes an American to stand up for his own place, his own times—please!"

And gently, but with a lovely smile, she withdrew her hand that I had folded close in mine. I let it go, for I saw her look toward the house, and, of course, I understood—jolly careless of me not to have remembered—but she would know from my nod and shrug that I comprehended.

And really, by Jove, it was almost as pleasant as holding her hand, just to watch her leaning back against the iron pillar about which curved the dark-leaved tendrils of some purple-flowering vine. By Jove, she just looked like a stunning, white, Easter-card angel—that's what!—even to the golden hair they always have and the jolly wings; for her gleaming arms, spread behind her head, made you think of that. But that was as near as one of them could come to her, for no golden-haired angel in white flowing nightgown was ever a patch on her for style!

Never a one could look so chic as she did in her smart linen suit, with its blue flannel collar, caught low with a flowing, breezy tie; and no jolly angel I ever saw pictured could sport a waist like that, so dainty, so modish, so jolly snug and—er—squeezable, don't you know—never! And I was devilish sure that no barefooted or sandaled angel would ever dare to put a foot beside one of those little white Oxfords or that arching instep, just blushing faintly through the silken mesh that held it—well, I guess not! And where the angel, I should like to know, that could match her glorious, fluffy pompadour or the distracting little golden smoke wisps that whirled and pulled and tangled and tossed and twisted and tugged, trying to lift her in their feeble arms into the current of the wandering breeze?

I sighed, and my deep breath brought her gaze back to me and her flashing smile as well.

"And so," she said, lifting her little chin, "you think there are just as many knights now as there used to be?"

I almost laughed at the child-like question—but I didn't! Dash it, no, I wouldn't have done so for the world. Just looked at her seriously and answered her in kind:

"Perfectly sure of it, don't you know!"

And, by Jove, I was! Knew if there had been any change, some newspaper-reading chap at the club would have mentioned it—that was safe: especially one silly ass who was always reading of some jolly comet that was coming. He would know about the nights.

"Yes—oh, yes, there are just as many," I affirmed positively, and added quickly: "More, you know!" For suddenly I remembered it was leap-year, and I knew there was some jolly rhyme about leap-year gives us one day more—so, of course, there'd be another night!

"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that," she said musingly. "There are just as many knights, you mean, but the conditions have changed—the man is changed—is that it?"

I should say the man was changed! "Oh, dash it, yes!" I blurted. By Jove, I hoped there wouldn't be another change.

"You mean"—with a little, challenging, puzzled smile, she leaned forward, her elbow resting upon her knee like a sculptured, Grecian pillar; her flower-like curving fingers supporting her chin like a Corinthian what's-its-name, you know, the sort of thing the ancient what-you-call-'ems always added to top off their stunning marble columns—you know!—well, like that—"you mean we may find knights, not only in the field, but in the shops, upon the streets—even in the slums; or in the hospitals, in the church or even on the bench—that is your idea?"

It wasn't my idea at all—I should say not! Who wanted to spend nights prowling around that way? Why—why, it wasn't respectable, dash it! Besides, that sort of thing—excursioning about seeing things—was devilish tiresome, if you asked me. I never did do it, even abroad, where you meet Americans, jolly bored and tired, doing all sorts of rum places no one else ever thinks of, don't you know.

And as for a bench! Well, it was like her, in her innocence of the world, not to know how downright vulgar that would be. I had seen couples sitting evenings in the park—and I knew!

But I answered tactfully:

"I don't mean those places so much, don't you know—I think we can find lots jollier and better nights elsewhere." And I closed my free eye and beamed at her through my glass. "Don't have to go so far, you know; under one's own roof, or—er—some one else's roof, for instance—why not here?" I jerked my head toward the old stone pile behind us.

"Oh!"—her eyebrows lifted at me—"so you've thought of that, too?"—she nodded gravely—"you mean in the library there?"

I winked assent.

The library suited me all right!

"Just now," she said in an oddly sobered voice, "I looked in as I passed through, and he was looking so crushed, so worn and tired, you know—he had just come from up-stairs; and yet he faced me so bravely and smilingly"—she shook her head—"poor fellow!"

I stared—puzzled, don't you know. Offhand, dash me if I could see what the judge had to do with our evenings together—why, I had his own approval of my suit. Then I remembered that she, of course, didn't know that—yet. Probably what she had in her dear little mind was that he might be holding the library—and he would, if he continued to think he was busy; for I had heard him say he expected to work all night. But then, there were dozens and dozens of others places we could go—well, I should just say!

I had just bent forward to suggest this to her when I saw she was going to speak. So I waited, smiling at her tenderly.

"And about Arthur—" she began, and I cut myself a painful stab with my nails—right in the palm—"now there is a case where I think you find"—she nodded toward the house again—"where you find one of his superb qualities, the one quality that, of all, I admire in a man the most."

"By Jove!" I said, leaning forward. I wondered what it was—and then, dash it, I asked her.

"Just trust!" she said simply, and her face grew luminous. "Faith, perhaps I should say. My father has it larger than any man I ever knew; it is something that goes out from him with his friendship, with his love, making a dual gift"—her voice dropped thoughtfully—"I have studied it in him all my life, and it has always seemed so beautiful to me—so wonderful—the unquestioning peace he has"—her blue eyes widened, shining—"has ever in return for the perfect, abiding trust that he gives to the thing he calls his own. I know, for he has made me feel it from the time I was a tiny little girl!" The last word was almost a whisper, so tense, so vibrant with feeling was it—she seemed to have forgotten my existence. "And if ever I find a man—" she breathed.

I coughed slightly and she started, stared at me—and then the dimple deepened in her cheek, lost in a bed of jolly roses. Her laughter pealed forth, birdlike—delicious!

"I beg your pardon!" she said. "But when I think of papa and of how he believes in his children, especially poor little me, I think I must get—" Her roguish, puzzled smile searched my face. "How is it you say it?—oh, I know—'I think I must be getting dippy!'"

And it was the first slang I had heard from those sweet lips since the night she was in my rooms!