He spoke the words in the manner of an invitation, and doubtless seeing prompt acquiescence in Claire's face, at once leaned forward to ask "Will you go?" Claire straightway rose, answering "With pleasure." She took his offered arm, and thought while she did so how strong and firm it was, as if bronze or stone were beneath its flimsy vestment, instead of muscular mortality. The band in the illuminated pavilion near by had lately paused, but it now struck up a waltz rich in long mellow-pealing cadences. "Is this your first visit here?" said Claire, as they descended the broad piazza steps, down toward the smooth, trim levels of grass and the massive, rounded beds of geranium, whose scarlets and greens now looked vague in the starlight. "Or have you been here many times before," she went on, "during past seasons, and so lost all your enthusiasm for this charming place?" "I've been here about six times in all," he answered, "but my enthusiasm is still in fine order. It's ready to break forth at any minute. If you want, Miss Twining, we can have a combined eruption this evening." Claire thought this clever; it had so fresh a sound after the blunt fun she had long heard; it made her think a little of the way Beverley Thurston phrased his ideas, though any resemblance between the two men could only exist for her in the large generic sense that they were both gentlemen. She laughed, with a note of real glee among the liquid trebles of her mirth. It seemed to her that she had already got to know Mr. Hollister quite well. And yet they were still such strangers! She had still so much to learn regarding him! "I'm glad you've nothing to say against this delightful island," she declared, as if mildly jubilant over the discovery. "I heard a man on the sands talking about it to a friend only a few mornings ago. He was a shabby man who wanted shaving, and I'm not sure that he had on any collar. I think he must have been a kind of philosopher. He said that Coney Island was an immense fact. There is just my opinion--that it is an immense fact." They were now but a slight distance from the foamy, rolling plash of the dark sea-waves. The music came to them in bursts of softer richness. With her arm still in that of her companion, Claire half turned toward the hotel, starred with countless lights, and looking, as it rose above the vague throngs beneath it, like some palace of dreamy legend, lit for festival. "I often think that this mere strip of sand must be so surprised," she continued, "to find itself grown suddenly important and famous after it has lain here lonely, almost unnoticed, for long centuries. I sometimes fancy that I can hear the waves talk to it as they break on its shore, and ask it what is meant by this wonderful change."