When Lee and Renier, locked in each other's arms, stood in the forest primeval, they were mistaken in imagining themselves to be unobserved.

A short half-hour before, Mary Darling had received a proposal of marriage. But Mr. Sam Langham, usually so worldly-wise, had erred, perhaps, in his choice of time and place. Whatever a huge kitchen, bright with sunlight upon burnished copper, may be, it is not a romantic place. And, worse than this, Mary herself was not in a romantic mood. Certain supplies due by the morning express had not arrived. Chef was at the telephone shouting broken French to the butcher in Carrytown; one of the kitchen-maids had come down with an aching tooth, and the other had been sent upon an errand from which she should have long since returned.

"Oh," exclaimed Mary, as Mr. Langham entered, smiling, "everything is in such a mess! I don't believe there's going to be any lunch to-day for any one. And I think I shall have a nervous breakdown!"

"I told you you would long ago," said Langham, "if you didn't rest more and take things easier. What does it matter if things go wrong once in a while? And if there isn't going to be any lunch, I'm glad, for one. I was thinking of not eating mine, anyway. And if I'm not hungry, you can be pretty sure that nobody else is hungry. I tell you it hurts me to see you work so hard. I admire it and I bow down, but it hurts. You tell Chef to do the best he can, and you come for a brisk walk with me. We'll walk up an appetite, and——"

"I can't possibly," said Mary. "I've got to stand by."

"Then you go for a walk and I'll stand by. Only trust me. I'll see that nobody goes hungry."

She did not appear to have heard his offer, and Mr. Langham spoke again, with a sudden change of tone.

"I'd like to take you out of this. I'd like to make everything in the world easy for you, if you would only let me. But you know that. You've known it all along. And knowing it, you've never even shown that it interested you; and so I suppose it's folly for me to mention it. But a man can't give up all his hopes of happiness in this world without even stating them, can he? I've hoped that you might get to care a little about me——"

Mary interrupted him with considerable impatience.

"Really," she said, "with Chef shouting at the telephone, and all, I don't know what you are driving at."

At that Mr. Langham looked so hurt and so unhappy and woebegone that Mary was touched with remorse.

"I didn't realize you were in earnest," she said. "I'm sorry I've hurt your feelings, but it's no use. I'm sorry—awfully sorry; but it's no use."

"I'm sorry, too," said Langham; "sorry I spoke; sorrier there was no use in speaking; sorriest of all that I'm no good to any one. But as long as I had to come a cropper, why, I'm glad it was for no one less wonderful than you. Will you let things be as they were? I won't bother you about my personal feelings ever again by a look or a word."

After he had gone Mary stood for a while with knitted brows. Chef had finished telephoning. The kitchen was in silence. Suddenly she broke this silence.

"Chef," she exclaimed, "I'm no use at all! You'll just have to do the best you can about lunch by yourself."

And she left the kitchen with great swiftness, looking like an angel on the verge of tears.

Chef's shining red face divided into a white smile, and he began to bustle about and make a noise with pots and pans and carving tools, and to sing as he bustled:

"Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse,
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond—
Les belles dames font comm'Ça,
Et puis encore comm'Ça."

It is probable that in his gay Parisian youth Chef had known a good deal about les belles dames. He had latterly given much attention to the progress of Miss Darling's friendship with Mr. Langham, and that this same progress had received a sharp setback under his very nose concerned him not a little. Chef possessed altogether too much currency that had once belonged to that lavish tipper, Mr. Langham. And Chef did not wish Mr. Langham to be driven from the kitchen and The Camp. He wished Mr. Langham to become a permanent Darling asset—like himself and the French range. And so, half singing, half speaking, and furiously bustling, he announced:

"I'll show her how little difference she makes. Without advice or dictation, practically without supplies of any kind, I shall arrange, nom de Dieu! a luncheon which, for pure deliciousness, will not have been surpassed during the entire Christian era. I shall hint to her that I tolerate her in my kitchen because I have known her since she was a little girl, but I shall make it clear by words and deeds that her presence or absence is not of the least importance. Let her then turn for comfort to the worthy, generous, and rich Mr. Langham, for whom the mere poaching of an egg is an exquisite pleasure!"

And he frowned and began to think formidable and inventive thoughts about matters connected with his craft and immediate needs and necessities.

Mary Darling had, of late, often imagined herself receiving an offer of marriage from Mr. Langham. That is badly expressed. Only the most insufferable and self-sufficient of men make offers of marriage. Your true, modest, and chivalrous lover gets down on his real or figurative knees and begs and beseeches. She had, then, often imagined her hand in the act of being besought by Mr. Langham. Being a practical young woman, she had pictured this as happening (repeatedly) at sunset, by moonlight, in the depths of romantic forests or on the tops of romantic mountains. And some voice in her (some very practical voice) told her that it never should have happened in a kitchen.

Mr. Langham's "sweet beseeching", instead of "moving her strangely," had made her rather cross. And such tenderness as she usually had for him had fled to cover. But now, as the clean, green forest closed about her, she had a reaction. She came to a dead stop and realized that she had been through an emotional crisis. Her heart was beating as if she had just finished a steep, swift climb. And her heart was aching too, aching for the kind and gentle friend and well-wisher to whom she had been so inexplicably cold and cutting. It was in vain to mourn for that diamond of a heart which she had rejected with so much finality. He had said that he would never "bother" her again (Bother her! The idea!), and he never would. He was a man of his word, Sam Langham was. Perhaps, even now he was causing his things to be packed with a view to leaving The Camp for ever and a day. But what could she do? Could she go to him (in person or by writing) and in his presence eat as much as a single mouthful of humble-pie? No, she could not possibly do that. Then, what could she do? Well, with the usual negligible results, she could cry her eyes out over the spilt milk.

She went swiftly forward, the shadows dappling her as she went, and her heart swelling and swelling with self-pity and general miserableness. Thoughts of Arthur and his happiness flashed through her mind. The thought that she, Mary Darling, unmarried, would in the course of a few years be called an old maid, caused her a panicky feeling. She pictured herself as very old (and very ugly), exhibiting improbable Chinese dogs at dog-shows and scowling at rosy babies. And I must say she almost laughed.

The path turned sharply to the right and disclosed to Mary's eyes two young people who stood locked in each other's arms and rocked slightly from side to side—rocked with ineffable delight and tenderness.

She stood stock-still, in plain view if they had looked her way, until presently they unlocked arms, drew a little apart, and had a good long look at each other, and then turned their backs upon that part of the forest and departed slowly.

Whither she was going, Mary did not know. But she went very swiftly and had upon her face the expression of a beautiful female commuter who has arrived at the station just in time to see her train pull out. But this expression changed when she found her path blocked by the diminutive house in which Sam Langham lived, and saw Sam Langham, a look of wonder on his face, rise from his big piazza chair and come toward her.

"Lee and Renier are going to be married," she exclaimed, all out of breath, "and I didn't mean to be such a brute! And I wouldn't have hurt you for anything in the world!"

Sam Langham only looked at her, for he was afraid to speak.

"I'm just an old goose," said Mary humbly, but very bravely, "and I take everything back. And if you meant what you said, Sam, and want to begin all over again, why, don't just stand there and look at me."

And presently she was ashamed of herself for having been so forward, and so she pursued the feelings of shame to their logical conclusion and hid her face.

And now, for the first time, she realized how hard she had worked ever since The Camp was changed into an inn to make it a go, and how much she needed rest and comforting and a masculine executive to lean on.

"Who said," murmured the ecstatic Langham, "that nothing good ever came of liking good things to eat?"

"Sam," said Mary, "I'm so happy I don't care if lunch is burned to a cinder."

It wasn't. Out of odds and ends of raw materials, and great slugs and gallons of culinary genius, Chef produced a lunch that transcended even Mary's and Langham's belief in him.

But it was Arthur who insisted that champagne be opened; and perhaps the champagne made the lunch seem even more delicious than it really was.

Maud and Eve had already discounted Arthur's engagement and Lee's. They had not, it is true, learned of the latter without feeling that if they didn't hurry they would miss their train; but they had disguised and fought off that feeling until now they were their gay and natural selves. It remained for Mr. Langham to shock them suddenly into a new set of emotions.

"I should be obliged," said he, rising to his feet, with a glass of champagne in his hand, "if everybody would drink the health of the happiest man present." Arthur and Renier looked very self-conscious. But Mr. Langham concluded: "And that man is myself. I have the honor to announce that, beyond peradventure, the loveliest and sweetest girl in all the world——"

And at that Mary blushed so and looked so happy and beautiful that everybody shouted with joy and surprise and laughter, and drank champagne, and tossed compliments about like shuttlecocks. And Arthur and Renier and Langham had a violent dispute as to which was the happiest; and decided to settle the dispute with sabres at—twenty paces.

Her first burst of surprise and excitement and pleasure having passed, Eve Darling experienced a sudden sinking feeling. She felt as if all the people she most loved to be with were going away on a delightful excursion and that she was being left behind. It was at this moment, while the uproar was still at its height, that she heard the shaken voice of Mr. Bob Jonstone in her ear.

"How about us?" he demanded.

"How about us—what?" she answered.

Then she felt her hand seized and held in the secret asylum furnished by the table-cloth, and there stole over her the solaceful feeling of having been asked at the last moment to go upon the delightful excursion.

"Eve?"

"Eve, darling—is it all right?"

"All right."

And then up shot Mr. Jonstone like a projectile from a howitzer, and he cried aloud, his habitual calmness and lazy habit of speech flung to the winds.

"You're not the only happy men in the world," he shouted. "I'm happier than the three of you put together, I am! Because my Darling is the best and most beautiful of all Darlings, and if any man dares to gainsay that, let him just step outside with me for five minutes—that's all."

Colonel Meredith's hair bristled like the mane of a fighting terrier.

"Do you mean to say," he whispered to Maud in a sort of savage whisper, "that I've got to swallow that insult without protest?"

It was on the tip of Maud's tongue to say that she didn't know what he meant. But how could she say that when she knew perfectly well?

"Only give me the right to answer him," continued the sincere warrior. He rose to his feet. "Is it yes—or no?"

"It's yes—yes," exclaimed Maud and, horrified with herself, she leaned back blushing and full of wonder.

"Mr. Jonstone—Mr. Bob—Jonstone!" cried Colonel Meredith.

Mr. Jonstone's attention was presently attracted, and he gave his cousin a glittering look.

"I'll be only too delighted to step outside with you for five minutes," said Colonel Meredith.

And the cousins glared and glared at each other. But whether or not they were really in earnest, if only for a moment, will never be known; at any rate, each of them appeared suddenly to perceive something comic about the other, and both burst into peals of schoolboy laughter.

Only Gay's happiness seemed a little forced, and her mother's.