"Does every man you meet tell you he loves you?" Ardita nodded. "Why shouldn't he? All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase--'I love you.'" Carlyle laughed and sat down. "That's very true. That's--that's not bad. Did you make that up?" "Yes--or rather I found it out. It doesn't mean anything especially. It's just clever." "It's the sort of remark," he said gravely, "that's typical of your class." "Oh," she interrupted impatiently, "don't start that lecture on aristocracy again! I distrust people who can be intense at this hour in the morning. It's a mild form of insanity--a sort of breakfast-food jag. Morning's the time to sleep, swim, and be careless." Ten minutes later they had swung round in a wide circle as if to approach the island from the north. "There's a trick somewhere," commented Ardita thoughtfully. "He can't mean just to anchor up against this cliff." They were heading straight in now toward the solid rock, which must have been well over a hundred feet tall, and not until they were within fifty yards of it did Ardita see their objective. Then she clapped her hands in delight. There was a break in the cliff entirely hidden by a curious overlapping of rock, and through this break the yacht entered and very slowly traversed a narrow channel of crystal-clear water between high gray walls. Then they were riding at anchor in a miniature world of green and gold, a gilded bay smooth as glass and set round with tiny palms, the whole resembling the mirror lakes and twig trees that children set up in sand piles. "Not so darned bad!" cried Carlyle excitedly. "I guess that little coon knows his way round this corner of the Atlantic." His exuberance was contagious, and Ardita became quite jubilant. "It's an absolutely sure-fire hiding-place!" "Lordy, yes! It's the sort of island you read about." The rowboat was lowered into the golden lake and they pulled to shore. "Come on," said Carlyle as they landed in the slushy sand, "we'll go exploring." The fringe of palms was in turn ringed in by a round mile of flat, sandy country. They followed it south and brushing through a farther rim of tropical vegetation came out on a pearl-gray virgin beach where Ardita kicked of her brown golf shoes--she seemed to have permanently abandoned stockings--and went wading. Then they sauntered back to the yacht, where the indefatigable Babe had luncheon ready for them. He had posted a lookout on the high cliff to the north to watch the sea on both sides, though he doubted if the entrance to the cliff was generally known--he had never even seen a map on which the island was marked. "What's its name," asked Ardita--"the island, I mean?" "No name 'tall," chuckled Babe. "Reckin she jus' island, 'at's all."