he had forgotten to tell her the date for which he wanted it.  The cake had begun it, the cake had continued it, the cake had brought them together; and in Eliza’s retrospect now I doubted If she could find the moment when her love for John had awakened; but if with women there ever is such a moment, then, as I have before said, it was when the girl behind the counter looked across at the handsome, blushing boy, and felt stirred to help him in his stumbling attempts to be businesslike about that cake.  If his youth unwittingly kindled hers, how could he or she help that?  But, had he ever once known it and shown it to her during his period of bondage to Hortense, then, indeed, the flame would have turned to ice in Eliza’s breast.  What saved him for her was his blind steadfastness against her.  That was the very thing she prized most, once it became hers; whereas, any secret swerving toward her from Hortense during his heavy hours of probation would have degraded John to nothing in Eliza’s eyes.  And so, making all this out by myself in the mountains after reading John’s note, I ordered from the North the handsomest old china cake-dish that Aunt Carola could find to be sent to Miss Eliza La Heu with my card.  I wanted to write on the card, “Rira bien qui viva le dernier”; but alas! so many pleasant thoughts may never be said aloud in this world of ours.  That I ordered china, instead of silver, was due to my surmise that in Kings Port—­or at any rate by Mrs. Weguelin and Miss Josephine St. Michael—­silver from any one not of the family would be considered vulgar; it was only a surmise, and, of course, it was precisely the sort of thing that I could not verify by asking any of them.

But (you may be asking) how on earth did all this come about?  What happened in Kings Port on the day following that important swim which Hortense and John took together in the waters of the harbor?

I wish that I could tell you all that happened, but I can only tell you of the outside of things; the inside was wholly invisible and inaudible to me, although we may be sure, I think, that when the circles that widened from Hortense’s plunge reached the shores of the town, there must have been in certain quarters a considerable splashing.  I presume that John communicated to somebody the news of his broken engagement; for if he omitted to do so, with the wedding invitations to be out the next day, he was remiss beyond excuse, and I think this very unlikely; and I also presume (with some evidence to go on) that Hortense did not, in the somewhat critical juncture of her fortunes, allow the grass to grow under her feet—­if such an expression may be used of a person who is shut up in the stateroom of a steam yacht.  To me John Mayrant made no sign of any sort by word or in writing, and this is the highest proof he ever gave me of his own delicacy, and also of his reliance upon mine; for he must have been pretty sure that I had overheard those last destiny-deciding words spoken between himself