I AM a loathsome person at times,” she informed him; “and to-night I was rather worse than usual.”

“I do dance like a—locomotive,” involuntarily.

“It doesn't matter how you dance,” she proceeded, “and you mustn't repeat it, it isn't generous.” Suddenly she laughed uncontrollably. “You looked so uncomfortable... your collar,” it was lost in a bubbling, silvery peal. “Forgive me,” she gasped.

“I don't mind,” he assured her. All at once he didn't; the sting had vanished from his pride; he smiled. He saw that she wore a honey-colored dress, with a strand of pearls about her slim throat, and that her feet, in satin, were even smaller than Ellie's. Her hair resembled more a crown of light than the customary adornment. “I didn't want to come,” he confided: “I hate, well—going out, dancing.”

“It doesn't suit you,” she admitted frankly; “you are so splendidly bronzed and strong; you need,” she paused, “lots of room.”

For this Anthony had no adequate reply. “I have this with some one,” she declared as the music recommenced, “but I hope they don't find me; I hate it for the moment... I'll show you a place; it's very wicked of me.” She rose and, waving him to follow, slipped over the grass. Beyond the house she stopped in the shadowy vista of a pergola; vines shut out the stars, walled them in a virid, still gloom. She sank on a low stone bench, and he found the grass at her feet. A mantle of fine romance descended upon his shoulders, of subtile adventure, prodigious daring. Immaculate men, pearl-studded, were searching for her, and she had hidden herself from them with him. A new and pleasant sense of importance warmed him, flattered his self-esteem. He felt strangely at ease, and sat in silent contentment. The faint sound of violins, a burst of distant laughter, floated to him.

“It seems as if the world were rushing on, out there, without us,” Eliza finally broke the silence, “as if they were keeping a furious pace, while we sat in some everlasting, quiet wood, like Fontainebleau. Don't you adore nature?”

“I knock about a lot outside,” he admitted cautiously, “often I stay out all night, by the Wingohocking Creek. There's a sort of cave where you can hear the falls, and the owls hunting about. I cook things in clay—fish, chickens,” he paused abruptly at the latter item, recalling the questionable source of his supply. “In winter I shoot rabbits with Bert Woods, he's a barber, and Doctor Allhop, you know—the druggist.”

“I am sure that your friends are very nice,” she promptly assured him.

“Bert's crazy about girls,” he remarked, half contemptuously.

“And you... don't care for them?”

“I don't know anything about them,” he admitted with an abrupt, unconscious honesty.

“But there must have been—there must be—one,” she persisted.

She leaned forward, and he met her gaze with unwavering candor. “Not that many,” he returned.

“It would be wonderful to care for just one person, always,” she continued intently: “I had a dream when I was quite young.... I dreamed that a marvellous happiness would follow a constancy like that. Father rather laughs at me, and quotes Shakespeare—the 'one foot on land and one on shore' thing. Perhaps, but it's too bad.”

Anthony gravely considered this new idea in relation to his own, hitherto lamented, lack of experience. It dawned upon him that the idea of manly success he had cherished would appear distasteful to Eliza Dreen. She had indirectly extolled the very thing of which he had been secretly ashamed. He thought in conjunction with her of the familiar group at the drugstore, and in this light the latter retreat suffered a disconcerting change: Thomas Meredith appeared sly and trivial, and unhealthy; Williams an empty braggard; Craik ineffectual, untidy. He surveyed himself without enthusiasm.

“You are different from any one I ever knew,” he told her.

“Oh, there are millions of me,” she returned; “but you are different. I didn't like you for a sou at first; but there is something about you like—like a very clear spring of water. That's idiotic, but it's what I mean. There is an early morning feeling about you. I am very sensitive to people,” she informed him, “some make me uncomfortable directly they come into the room. There was a curÉ at Etretat I perfectly detested, and he turned out to be an awful person.”

Her name was called unmistakably across the lawn, and she rose. “They're all furious,” she announced, without moving further. Her face was pale, immaterial, in the gloom; her wide eyes dark, disturbing. A minute gold watch on her wrist ticked faintly, and—it seemed to Anthony—in furious haste. Something within him, struggling inarticulately for expression, hurt; an oppressive emotion beat upon his heart. He uttered a period about seeing her again.

“Some day you may show me the place where the fall sounds and the owls hunt. No, don't come with me.” She turned and fled.

An unreasoning conviction seized Anthony that a momentous occasion had overtaken him; he was unable to distinguish its features, discover it grave or gay; but, wrapped in the impenetrable veil of the future, it enveloped and permeated him, swept in the circle of his blood's circulation, vibrated in the cords of his sensitive ganglia. He returned slowly to the house: the brilliantly-lit, dancing figures seemed the mere figments of a febrile dream; but the music apparently throbbed within his brain.

Ellie's cool voice recreated his actual sphere. He found their hack, the driver slumbering doubled on the seat. The latter rose stiffly, and stirred his drowsing animal into a stumbling walk. Beyond the illuminated entrance to Hydrangea House the countryside lay profoundly dim to where the horizon flared with the pale reflection of distant lightning.

“Eliza's a sweet,” Ellie pronounced. Anthony brooded without reply upon his opinion. The iron-like collar had capitulated, and rested limply upon his limp shirt; at the sacrifice of a second button his waistcoat offered complete comfort. “I am going to get a new dress suit,” he announced decisively. Ellie smiled with sisterly malice. “Eliza is a sweet,” she reiterated.

“You go to thunder!” he retorted. But, “she's wonderful,” he admitted, and—out of his conclusive experience, “there is not another girl like her in all the world.”

“I'll agitate for the new suit,” Ellie promised.

---