So I said, very distinctly, “Even if his extremely easy attention _hadn’t_ been caught by another girl—the girl he was seeing off to the Irish boat last night at Holyhead, if you must know!—even if he were the only man left on board a—a desert-island, I shouldn’t want to marry Sydney Vandeleur, so now you know!—And you needn’t think, as men always _do_ think, that it’s sour grapes!” I rushed on before he could put in a word. “You might ask my chum about that—the very afternoon we had tea there I nearly offended her by letting her see what I thought of _him_!—even though he still imagined himself in love with me——” Here I broke off, for a flying cricket-ball from one of those shrieking teams we passed had knocked off my companion’s straw hat. He had to pick it up and then to sling the ball in back to the small and grimy bowler before he could speak; and I, worked up to it now, didn’t see why he, the man, should be allowed the passing of every vote of censure, so I went on: “As for your accusing me of making you look foolish, Mr. Waters, what about you, with me? What about the other girl? I was, after all, your official _fiancée_. And—and in that capacity, I might just as well have objected to your paying so much attention to _her_!” “What’s this?” he took up very sharply, stopping on the path. “When have you seen me with another girl?” “Why! Yesterday! The day before, too!” “_What——?_” he said, long drawn-out. “Can you mean—_can_ you mean the daughter of Monsieur Charrier?” (What did he imagine? Could I mean the figure-head of the _Gwladys Pritchard_?) “Of course I mean Mademoiselle Cha——” “Object to Odette Charrier?” he cried, almost as loudly as Theo might have done. And, staring up at him, I saw that the set mask of his face had broken up into its broadest, most boyish smile. His eyes were full of laughter and delight.... Ah! How she must hold him, I thought, for her very name so to irradiate him in a moment! “_That_,” he said, with the laughter running through his voice,“was so utterly different.” “Ah, yes! It’s always ‘different’ in one’s own case. You and another girl can do as you choose—but you wouldn’t have allowed an inch to me and another man—_you_ mustn’t be compromised. Well, you should know your own side of it. All that, I suppose, is what you can’t tell _me_.” “Exactly!” he said again, and all the smile went out of his face. “This _dashed_ tangle!” “But considering it’s all at an end now,” I said reasonably enough, “why need we go on talking about it?” And then I found that I was holding my breath in suspense. Terrified suspense lest he should take me at my word.... I knew then. I knew why I felt so. If we _could_ only “go on”! I asked for nothing more.