They moved on together, slowly and in step.  His head was bent, face sullen and uncomfortably flushed.  Again she felt the curiously unaccountable glow in her own cheeks responding in pink fire once more; and annoyed and confused she halted and looked up at him with that frank confidence characteristic of her.

“Something has gone wrong,” she said.  “Tell me.”

“I will.  I’m telling myself now.”  She laughed, stole a glance at him, then her face fell.

“I certainly don’t know what you mean, and I’m not very sure that you know.”

She was right; he did not yet know.  Strange, swift pulses were beating in temple and throat; strange tumults and confusion were threatening his common sense, paralyzing will-power.  A slow, resistless intoxication had enveloped him, through which instinctively persisted one warning ray of reason.  In the light of that single ray he strove to think clearly.  They walked to the pavilion together, he silent, sombre-eyed, taking a mechanical leave of his hostess, fulfilling conventions while scarcely aware of the routine or of the people around him; she composed, sweet, conventionally faultless—­and a trifle pale as they turned away together across the lawn.

When they took their places side by side in the chair she was saying something perfunctory concerning the fete and Mrs. Ascott.  And as he offered no comment:  “Don’t you think her very charming and sincere....  Are you listening to me, Mr. Hamil?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Everybody was very jolly.  Yes, indeed.”

“And—­the girl who adores the purple perfume of petunias?” she asked mischievously.  “I think that same purple perfume has made you drowsy, my uncivil friend.”

He turned.  “Oh, you heard that?”

“Yes; I thought it best to keep a sisterly eye on you.”

He forced a smile.

“You were very much amused, I suppose—­to see me sitting bras-dessus-bras-dessous with the high-browed and precious.”

“Not amused; no.  I was worried; you appeared to be so hopelessly captivated by her of the purple perfumery.  Still, knowing you to be a man normally innocent of sentiment, I hoped for Mrs. Ascott and the best.”

“Did I once tell you that there was no sentiment in me, Calypso?  I believe I did.”

“You certainly did, brother,” she replied with cheerful satisfaction.

“Well, I—­”

“—­And,” she interrupted calmly, “I believed you.  I am particularly happy now in believing you.”  A pause—­and she glanced at him.  “In fact, speaking seriously, it is the nicest thing about you—­the most attractive to me, I think.”  She looked sideways at him, “Because, there is no more sentiment in me than there is in you....  Which is, of course, very agreeable—­to us both.”

He said nothing more; the chair sped on homeward.  Above them the sky was salmon-colour; patches of late sunlight burned red on the tree trunks; over the lagoon against the slowly kindling west clouds of wild-fowl whirled, swung, and spread out into endless lengthening streaks like drifting bands of smoke.