He made no reply; and she lay back among the cushions considering what he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering in her cheeks.

“How can I marry you,” she asked, “when I would—­would not care to endure a—­a caress from any man—­even from you?  It—­such things—­would spoil it all.  I don’t love you—­that way. . . .  Oh! Don’t look at me that way!  Have I hurt you?—­dear Captain Selwyn? . . .  I did not mean to. . . .  Oh, what has become of our happiness!  What has become of it!” And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in the silken pillows.

For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her crown of hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and he saw her hands clasping, unclasping, or crushing the tiny handkerchief deep into one palm.

There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, steadying the swing with one hand on the chain.

“Dearest,” he said under his breath, “I am very selfish to have done this; but I—­I thought—­perhaps—­you might have cared enough to—­to venture—­”

“I do care; you are very cruel to me.”  The voice was childishly broken and muffled.  He looked down at her, slowly realising that it was a child he still was dealing with—­a child with a child’s innocence, repelled by the graver phase of love, unresponsive to the deeper emotions, bewildered by the glimpse of the mature role his attitude had compelled her to accept.  That she already had reached that mile-stone and, for a moment, had turned involuntarily to look back and find her childhood already behind her, frightened her.

Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, he sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the Atlantic was battering the sands of Surf Point.  Then his patient gaze shifted to the east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue as the eyes of the girl who lay crouching in the cushioned corner of the swinging seat, small hands clinched over the handkerchief—­a limp bit of stuff damp with her tears.

“There is one thing,” he said, “that we mustn’t do—­cry about it—­must we, Eileen?”

“No-o.”

“Certainly not.  Because there is nothing to make either of us unhappy; is there?”

“Oh-h, no.”

“Exactly.  So we’re not going to be unhappy; not one bit.  First because we love each other, anyway; don’t we?”

“Y-yes.”

“Of course we do.  And now, just because I happen to love you in that way and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that way, why, it’s nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, Eileen?”

“No. . . .  No, it is not. . . .  But I c-can’t help it.”

“Oh, but you’re going to help it, aren’t you?”

“I—­I hope so.”

He was silent; and presently she said:  “I—­the reason of it—­my crying—­is b-b-because I don’t wish you to be unhappy.”

“But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!”