The week that had passed between the acceptance of her plan and this, the last night of her stay at Silorno, confirmed the soundness of her strategy. Archie's frank friendliness towards herself had undergone a subtle change, while his relations with her sister remained precisely on the same calm tableland of comradeship. But below his comradeship with herself, like the sun glowing faintly through a mist without heat at present, but with penetration of light, she knew that there was growing an emotional brightness. It was with light and with a nameless quickening that his eye dwelt on her, and now as they sat in the deep dusk of the garden, illumined only by the stars that twinkled like minute golden oranges in the boughs of the stone-pine, she knew that he was looking at the pale wraith of her face, which was all the starlight left her with, in a manner that was not yet a week old. It was so dark, here in the deep shade, that she saw nothing of his sun-tanned face beyond a featureless oval, but when, from time to time, he drew on his cigarette, it leaped into distinctness. There was emotion there, or, at any rate, the stuff from which emotion is made; there was need, not yet wholly conscious of itself, but waiting, like buried treasure, to be released. And on her side, also, something was astir behind her calculated plan. She felt sorry, until the wisdom of her project laid its calming hand upon her again, that she was being so unselfish as to accompany Cousin Marion back to town. It would have been extraordinarily pleasant to sit here many times more with Archie, and both watch and take part in the growth of the situation of which the seed had been deliberately planted by herself. It was but a weak little spike as yet, but undeniably there was the potentiality of growth in it. Suddenly his face leapt into light, as he struck a match, and the gain of a fortnight's London season seemed to her insignificant. And the success of her plan, the wisdom of which she still endorsed, was but a frigid triumph, for she felt to a degree yet unknown to her his personal charm. "Oh, Archie, I wish I wasn't going away," she said. "It has been a nice time. I wish--no, I suppose that's selfish of me." "I want to know what is selfish of you," said he. "Do you? Well, as it's our last evening you shall. I wish I thought you would miss me more." He moved just a shade closer to her. "Oh, I shall miss you quite enough," he said. She laughed. "I don't think you will," she said. "You'll have your bathing and your boating and your writing. I expect you will have a very jolly time." He seemed to think over this. "Yes, I shall have all those things," he said. "And I like them. Why shouldn't I? But--no, like you, I won't say that." "But I did," she remarked. "Well, I will too. I shall miss you much more than I should have missed you if you had gone away a week ago." She, too, hesitated a moment. Then very coolly she replied: "Thank you very much."