She was a little surprised, and moved, by the genuine feeling with which he spoke.

“I was most fortunate to get the house,” she answered.  “And I have grown to love it.  Sometimes it seems as though I had always lived here.”

“Then you don’t envy that,” he said, flinging his hand towards an opening in the shrubbery which revealed a glimpse of one of the pilasters of the palace across the way.  The instinct of tradition which had been the cause of Mrs. Forsythe’s departure was in him, too.  He, likewise, seemed to belong to the little house as he took one of the wicker chairs.

“Not,” said Honora, “when I can have this.”

She was dressed in white, her background of lilac leaves.  Seated on the railing, with the tip of one toe resting on the porch, she smiled down at him from under the shadows of her wide hat.

“I didn’t think you would,” he declared.  “This place seems to suit you, as I imagined you.  I have thought of you often since we first met last winter.”

“Yes,” she replied hastily, “I am very happy here.  Mrs. Shorter tells me you are staying with then.”

“When I saw you again last night,” he continued, ignoring her attempt to divert the stream from his channel, I had a vivid impression as of having just left you.  Have you ever felt that way about people?”

“Yes,” she admitted, and poked the toe of her boot with her parasol.

“And then I find you in this house, which has so many associations for me.  Harmoniously here,” he added, “if you know what I mean.  Not a newcomer, but some one who must always have been logically expected.”

She glanced at him quickly, with parted lips.  It was she who had done most of the talking at Mrs. Grainger’s dinner; and the imaginative quality of mind he was now revealing was unlooked for.  She was surprised not to find it out of character.  It is a little difficult to know what she expected of him, since she did not know herself the methods, perhaps; of the Viking in Longfellow’s poem.  She was aware, at least, that she had attracted him, and she was beginning to realize it was not a thing that could be done lightly.  This gave her a little flutter of fear.

“Are you going to be long in Newport?” she asked.

“I am leaving on Friday,” he replied.  “It seems strange to be here again after so many years.  I find I’ve got out of touch with it.  And I haven’t a boat, although Farnham’s been kind enough to offer me his.”

“I can’t imagine you, somehow, without a boat,” she said, and added hastily:  “Mrs. Shorter was speaking of you this morning, and said that you were always on the water when you were here.  Newport must have been quite different then.”