"Well, after all, the confidence was not all on one side! We heard enough about you. `My chum Gerard' has been a household word among us for years past. You were such a paragon that we were quite bored with the list of your perfections." She raised her hands and began checking off his characteristics on the different fingers in charming, mischievous fashion. "My chum Gerard is so clever,--so industrious,--so far-seeing,--so thoughtful,--so generous,--so kind,--so helpful--no! I am not going to stop; I've not half-finished yet.--All that he does is wise; all that he tries, succeeds; all that he has, he shares; and when he speaks, let no dog bark! When we read about impossible heroes in books we called them `Gerard'; when we wanted to express the acme of perfection, we called a thing `Gerardy.' Jill read aloud the _Swiss Family Robinson_ to Pam, and called the good proper papa `Mr Gerard' all the way through. So now!" "Now, indeed!" echoed the real Mr Gerard, laughing. "You are certainly revenged, Miss Trevor. I don't know anything more trying than to be preceded by an impossibly exaggerated character! The reality is bound to be a disappointment. Miles has credited me with his own virtues, for in reality I am a very faulty person; not in the least like that paragon, Robinson Papa, of whom I have a vivid remembrance. He would have been a useful person out in Mexico, all the same. That convenient habit of discovering every necessity for the table or the toilet on the nearest bush would have helped us out of many a dilemma." They laughed together over the old-time memory, and then, suddenly sobering, Mr Gerard continued-- "At any rate, Miss Trevor, the fact remains, that by `good report or ill,' even by sight, so far as photographs can reproduce us, we have been intimately acquainted with each other for the last six years. Six years is a long time. It ought to enable us to meet as friends rather than acquaintances?" The last sentence was uttered more as a question than a fact, and Betty answered with eager acquiescence. "Oh yes, as friends, quite old friends. It is far better so--" "Yet there are times when you treat me like the veriest stranger! It must be my own fault. Have I done or said anything since my arrival which has displeased you?" "Oh no! Please don't think so. It was nothing at all, not a thing, except only that--" She could not say, "Except that you seemed to prefer Jill's society to mine," and so complete the sentence; so she subsided into blushing silence, and Mr Gerard tactfully forbore to question. "Don't let there be any more `excepts' or `buts,' please! Take me on trust as Miles' friend and--if you will allow me--your own. That is all I request."