“I can’t tell you.”

“You must.”

“No.”

A low-growing magnolia hid them from the rest of the world; he put masterful hands on her shoulders and turned her face toward him—­her little unhappy face.

“Now tell me.”

She shook herself free.  “Don’t, Barry.”

He flushed suddenly and sensitively.  “I know I’m not much of a fellow.”

She answered with a dignity which seemed to surmount her usual childishness, “Barry, if a man wants a woman to believe in him, he’s got to make himself worthy of it.”

“Well,” defiantly, “what have I done?”

[Illustration:  “What have I done?”]

“Don’t you know?”

“No-o.”

“Then I’ll tell you.  Yes, I will tell you,” with sudden courage.  “I was at Delilah’s this morning, and I saw your picture, and what you had written on it——­”

He stared at her, with a sense of surging relief.  If it was only that he had to explain about—­Lilah.  A smile danced in his eyes.

“Well?”

“I know you like to—­play the game—­but I didn’t think you’d go as far as that——­”

“How far?”

“Oh, you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Barry!”

“I don’t.  I wish you’d tell me what you mean, Leila.”

“I will.”  Her eyes were not reproachful now, they were blazing.  She had risen, and with her hands tucked into her muff, and her veil blowing about her flushed cheeks, she made her accusation.  “You wrote on that picture, ‘To the One Girl—­Forever.’  Is that the way you think of Delilah, Barry?”

“No.  It is the way I think of you.  And how did that picture happen to be in Delilah’s possession?  I sent it to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes, I took it over to you yesterday, and left it with one of the maids—­a new one.  I intended, to go in and give it to you, but when she said you had callers, I handed her the package——­”

“And I thought—­oh, Barry, what else could I think?”

She was so little and lovely in her tender contrition, that he flung discretion to the winds.  “You are to think only one thing,” he said, passionately, “that I love you—­not anybody else, not ever anybody else.  I haven’t dared put it into words before.  I haven’t dared ask you to marry me, because I haven’t anything to offer you yet.  But I thought you—­knew——­”

Her little hand went out to him.  “Oh, Barry,” she whispered, “do you really feel that way about me?”

“Yes.  More than I have said.  More than I can ever say.”

He drew her down beside him on the bench.  “Our world won’t want us to get married, Leila; they will say that I am such a boy.  But you will believe in me, dear one?”

“Always, Barry.”

“And you love me?”

“Oh, you know it.”

“Yes, I know it,” he said, in a moved voice, as he raised her hands and kissed them, “I know it—­thank God.”