But it was with thanksgiving he heard that Miss McGuire had said she wished he would apologise; she had forbidden him to address her. He followed her from the dining-room, and begged her pardon in the hall. She replied: "You're a nice boy really; I'm so glad you've said you're sorry." He wanted to tell her that he appreciated her kindness, but he could only falter, and grip her hand. It discomfited him to know that he was blushing. In the afternoon he was sitting on the terrace, with a sketching-block on his knees, and Mrs. Adaile came out through the windows. She sauntered to and fro. He couldn't lift his eyelids when she approached, but each time he listened, tense with the frou-frou of her skirt. All his consciousness was strung to the question whether she would stop. "May I look?" she said. The sensation was in his chest--he felt as if his chest had gone. She stood there, amused by his symptoms, for two or three minutes, and moved away. He was incredibly excited, boundlessly happy until he began to think of the better answers he might have made. Visions of the evening and the morrow dazzled him; when he went inside it was not the same hotel to him, they were not the same rooms. It does not take a woman six days to create a world for any man. By the end of the week he talked to her often and freely. At the end of a fortnight: "I used to be afraid you'd never say anything at all to me," he owned. "I thought you weren't very nice," she said. "Miss McGuire told you things about me?" "She told me as soon as you apologised to her, too. I was pleased you did that, even if you weren't in the wrong." "Wouldn't you ever have taken any notice of me if I hadn't?" "I did notice you," she smiled. "Did you? But 'ever spoken to me,' I mean?" "I don't know. We shouldn't have been such good friends as we are. I've never liked any boy as I like you, Con." He ached to tell her how infinitely grateful he felt, but he could not find a word. They walked up and down together. Perhaps she understood. On a sudden he thought how cruel it was that the end would come when he went to Paris, or when she went to England. In that moment instinct taught the lad as remorselessly as experience teaches man. He _knew_ their friendship was the merest incident to her, and the hurtfulness of the knowledge squeezed his throat. "If we meet again one day, you'll give me a stiff little bow and pass by," he blurted. "Con!" she murmured. "Why, I've become chummier here with you in a little while than I am with people I've known at home for years." Still instinct was heavy in the boy. He always spent the morning out of doors with his brushes; soon he found himself restless during the morning, impatient to return to the hotel. And he did not know he was in love with her. It did not occur to him as possible he could be in love with her. He had absolutely no suspicion.