"But we don't care if it doesn't.... Do you know, I think that is what makes it beautiful--" She glanced at the leafy walls of the pergola. "We know it will not be like this always--and so we just--love it!" He stared a little. "You are not the least bit what I thought you were!" he said helplessly. "Don't you like me!" Her eyes demanded it. "I--adore you!" he said softly. "But all these ideas about not lasting-- Good Lord!--Here's the tea!" He sprang up and took it from the man and set it out for her. And they drank it--with the light coming in through the crossing vines and checkering the table, and falling on her hair and gleaming delicately at him in little glints like stars--all through it. XXXIV "Do you think we'd better tell dad?" They had gathered an armful of the roses and loitered along the winding paths, and were standing at last by the curb, waiting for the car.... She carried a few of the roses in her hand. She looked down at them thoughtfully. And suddenly the look of Miss Canfield, the nurse, flashed back to him. "We don't want to upset him," she said slowly. "I don't believe it will--upset him.... Do you know, I believe he wants it--I half suspect he's been planning it all along!" "Do you? What makes you think so?" She had turned to him curiously. He shook his head. "Father's deep! I can't tell exactly why I think he knows.... But I never got very far ahead of him yet!" "Very well--we will tell him." "To-night?" "If you like." "I want him to see you like this-- There's the car!" He hailed it. So they came into Herman Medfield's room and stood before him with the armful of flowers. And he looked up at them--and smiled. "God bless you, my children!" he said, after a critical glance at their smiling faces. "That is the proper thing to say, isn't it?" His eyes dwelt on them fondly. Julian glanced at her. "I told you!" he said meaningly. "What did you tell her?" "That you knew all along, sir. I told her I never fooled you yet!" "Well, you have tried hard enough.... Come here, please, Daughter." So she went over and stood beside him and bent a little for him. And he kissed her, and looked at the delicate color that came and went in her face, and at the slender freshness of her figure as it straightened itself. "I am glad my boy has done so well," he said quietly.... "I think I'll go to bed, when my nurse comes back. I am a little tired, I find." "She will be here in a minute, sir--as soon as she changes her gown." She nodded to him and was gone. And the boy and his father sat facing each other, with the light lessening in the room. "How was the garden?" asked Medfield. "Fine! I never saw it look so well!" The boy's voice was happy. Medfield's eyes twinkled. "Perhaps you were not altogether fitted to judge." He was leaning back in his chair and looking at the light in his son's face.