He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was, anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out of your back window." "There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to his,--"there's only an air-shaft.... Am I to open it?--I mean this case?" "It is yours." She opened it daintily. "Oh, C. Bailey, Junior!" she said very gently. "You mustn't do this!" "Why?" "It's _too_ beautiful. Isn't it?" "Nonsense, Athalie. Here, I'll wind it and set it for you. This is how it works--" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over her wrist, snapped the catch. For a few moments her fair head remained bent as she gazed in silence at the tiny moving hands. Then, looking up: "Thank you, C. Bailey, Junior," she said, a little solemnly perhaps. He laughed, somewhat conscious of the slight constraint: "You're welcome, Athalie. Do you really like it?" "It is wonderfully beautiful." "Then I'm perfectly happy and contented--or I will be when you read that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed." She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only--missed you." "Really?" "Yes," she said innocently. For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own constraint, spoke gaily, lightly: "You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too generous to me." She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that is why I never forgot you." Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he had never entirely forgotten her. "I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my credential. Date and postmark plead for me." But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said so. "Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?" "Yes--when you go." "Why?" "Because--it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said frankly. "Athalie, are you really glad to see me?" She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached fascination.