“You knew even then?”

“Yes, I did.  The Palm Beach News published your picture a week ago; and I read all about the very remarkable landscape architect who was coming to turn the Cardross jungle into a most wonderful Paradise.”

“You knew me all that time?”

“All of it, Mr. Hamil.”

“From the moment you climbed into my boat?”

“Practically.  Of course I did not look at you very closely at first....  Does that annoy you?  It seems to ... or something does, for even in the dusk I can see your ever-ready blush—­”

“I don’t know why you pretend to think me such a fool,” he protested, laughing; “you seemed to take that for granted from the very first.”

“Why not?  You persistently talked to me when you didn’t know me—­you’re doing it now for that matter!—­and you began by telling me that I was fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and unnatural object generally—­and all because I wouldn’t flirt with you—­”

His quick laughter interrupted her.  She ventured to laugh a little too—­a very little; and that was the charm of her to him—­the clear-eyed, delicate gravity not lightly transformed.  But when her laughter came, it came as such a surprisingly lovely revelation that it left him charmed and silent.

“I wonder,” she said, “if you can be amusing—­except when you don’t mean to be.”

“If you’ll give me a chance to try—­”

“Perhaps.  I was hardly fair to you in that boat.”

“If you knew me in the boat this morning, why did you not say so?”

“Could I admit that I knew you without first pretending I didn’t?  Hasn’t every woman a Heaven-given right to travel in a circle as the shortest distance between two points?”

“Certainly; only—­”

She shook her head slowly.  “There’s no use in my telling you who I am, now, considering that I can’t very well escape exposure in the near future.  That might verge on effrontery—­and it’s horrid enough to be here with you—­in spite of several thousand people tramping about within elbow touch....  Which reminds me that my own party is probably hunting for me....  Such a crowd, you know, and so easy to become separated.  What do you suppose they’d think if they suspected the truth?...  And the worst of it is that I cannot afford to do a thing of this sort....  You don’t understand; but you may some day—­partly.  And then perhaps you’ll think this matter all over and come to a totally different conclusion concerning my overlooking your recent rudeness and—­and my consenting to speak to you.”

“You don’t believe for one moment that I could mistake it—­”

“It depends upon what sort of a man you really are....  I don’t know.  I give you the benefit of all doubts.”

She stood silent, looking him candidly in the eyes, then with a gesture and the slightest shrug, she turned away toward the white road outside.  He was at her elbow in two steps.