“You need not address me at all.”

“I need, and will.  Don’t be ill-natured.”

“But I don’t know you.  I wonder at your—­” she hesitated at the word which occurred to her, but, being unable to think of a better one, used it—­“at your cheek.”

He laughed, and she watched him take a couple of turns with the roller.  Presently, refreshing himself by a look at her, he caught her looking at him, and smiled.  His smile was commonplace in comparison with the one she gave him in return, in which her eyes, her teeth, and the golden grain in her complexion seemed to flash simultaneously.  He stopped rolling immediately, and rested his chin on the handle of the roller.

“If you neglect your work,” said she maliciously, “you won’t have the grass ready when the people come.”

“What people?” he said, taken aback.

“Oh, lots of people.  Most likely some who know you.  There are visitors coming from London:  my guardian, my guardianess, their daughter, my mother, and about a hundred more.”

“Four in all.  What are they coming for?  To see you?”

“To take me away,” she replied, watching for signs of disappointment on his part.

They were at once forthcoming.  “What the deuce are they going to take you away for?” he said.  “Is your education finished?”

“No.  I have behaved badly, and I am going to be expelled.”

He laughed again.  “Come!” he said, “you are beginning to invent in the Smilash manner.  What have you done?”

“I don’t see why I should tell you.  What have you done?”

“I!  Oh, I have done nothing.  I am only an unromantic gentleman, hiding from a romantic lady who is in love with me.”

“Poor thing,” said Agatha sarcastically.  “Of course, she has proposed to you, and you have refused.”

“On the contrary, I proposed, and she accepted.  That is why I have to hide.”

“You tell stories charmingly,” said Agatha.  “Good-bye.  Here is Miss Carpenter coming to hear what we are taking about.”

“Good-bye.  That story of your being expelled beats—­Might a common man make so bold as to inquire where the whitening machine is, Miss?”

This was addressed to Jane, who had come up with some of the others.  Agatha expected to see Smilash presently discovered, for his disguise now seemed transparent; she wondered how the rest could be imposed on by it.  Two o’clock, striking just then, reminded her of the impending interview with her guardian.  A tremor shook her, and she felt a craving for some solitary hiding-place in which to await the summons.  But it was a point of honor with her to appear perfectly indifferent to her trouble, so she stayed with the girls, laughing and chatting as they watched Smilash intently marking out the courts and setting up the nets.  She made the others laugh too, for her hidden excitement, sharpened by irrepressible shootings of dread, stimulated her, and the romance of Smilash’s