“Yes, I wish to see you at once.”

“Particularly?”

“Very particularly.”

“Oh, if it’s as serious as that, you alarm me.  I’m afraid to come.”

“I’m afraid to have you.  But please come.”

He heard her laugh to herself; then her clear, amused voice:  “What are you going to say to me if I come out?”

“Something dreadful!  Hurry!”

“Oh, if that’s the case I’ll hurry,” she returned, and a moment later the door opened and she emerged in a breezy flutter of silvery ribbons and loosened ruddy hair.

She was dressed in some sort of delicate misty stuff that alternately clung and floated, outlining or clouding her glorious young figure as she moved with leisurely free-limbed grace across the hall to meet him.

The pretty greeting she always reserved for him, even if their separation had been for a few minutes only, she now offered, hand extended; a cool, fragrant hand which lay for a second in his, closed, and withdrew, leaving her eyes very friendly.

“Come out on the west veranda,” she said; “I know what you wish to say to me.  Besides, I have something to confide to you, too.  And I’m very impatient to do it.”

He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad swing, and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable.  Then when he had taken the place beside her she turned toward him very frankly, and he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct gaze.

“What is disturbing our friendship?” she asked.  “Do you know?  I don’t.  I went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and quietly deliberated.  And do you know what conclusion I have reached?”

“What?” he asked.

“That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship.  And that what I said to you on the beach was foolish.  I don’t know why I said it; I’m not the sort of girl who says such stupid things—­though I was apparently, for that one moment.  And what I said about Gladys was childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain Selwyn.  Don’t think me silly or perverse or sentimental, will you?”

“No, I won’t.”

She smiled at him with a trifle less courage—­a trifle more self-consciousness:  “And—­and as for what I called you—­”

“You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased you?”

“Y-es.  I was silly to do it; sillier to be ashamed of doing it.  There’s a great deal of the callow schoolgirl in me yet, you see.  The wise, amused smile of a man can sometimes stampede my self-possession and leave me blushing like any ninny in dire confusion. . . .  It was very, very mean of you—­for the blood across your face did shock me. . . .  And, by myself, and in my very private thoughts, I do sometimes call you—­by your first name. . . .  And that explains it. . . .  Now, what have you to say to me?”

“I wish to ask you something.”

“With pleasure,” she said; “go ahead.”  And she settled back, fearlessly expectant.