"But sweet the memory lingers Of happy fleeting times When I have kissed her fingers And folded them in rhymes. "Hands shouldn't be so slender, So dear and white and strong, To waken thoughts so tender That fold them like a song!" "Charming! I never thought when I talked to you that night at your sister's that I was addressing my inanities to a poet. Those are very nice jingles. I'm struck by the imagination they show--in the second verse I think it is--?" He repeated the verse. "Are you daring me?" he asked. "I dared you once and got you into a lot of trouble. Please remember that we are unchaperoned and the dear little girls asleep in those tents back yonder would be shocked--" "I shall make the shock as gentle as possible," he said and kissed her unresisting hand. "The poem seems in a way to have been prophetic!" she remarked. "I must run now or the doctor will scold me, or I shall be scolding you! I must say one thing before we part. I've had time today to do a good deal of thinking, and my opinion of myself isn't very high. Out of sheer contrariness that night in Washington I teased you into doing things that led you into grave danger--and the danger is still all about us. I'm sorry; with all my heart I'm sorry! If anything should happen to you, it would be my fault--my very grievous sin! And maybe there are other men that I may have said similar things to--oh, you were not the first!" she laughed forlornly. "They, too, may have plunged into the same pit I dug for you. Oh, how foolish I've been!" There was no questioning the sincerity of her dejection and contrition, and he felt moved to tell her of Putney's confession in the park at Chicago, that they might laugh together at the curious fling of fate that had brought two of her victims together In deadly combat. But her mood did not encourage the idea that she would view the matter in a humorous light. "I wish you could tell me truly," she went on, "that what I said that night really didn't impress you; that it wasn't responsible for your giving up your plans for going to the Rockies?" "Honestly, I can't say anything of the kind! And if we hadn't had the talk, and if you hadn't sent the verse, I shouldn't be here trying to help you now." "But it was flirting; it was the silliest kind of flirting!" "That is always a legitimate form of entertainment, a woman's right and privilege! Please put all this out of your mind!" "It's not a thing to be dismissed so lightly. I'm very unhappy about it; I'm deeply ashamed of myself!" "You exaggerate the whole matter," he urged. "You are making me out a miserable weakling indeed when you think I ambled off toward perdition just because you dared me to assert myself a little!"