So he contrived to get as close to Diana as he could on all occasions; and very often, to her surprise, she found him at her heels or seated unnaturally near her, pale eyes slightly protruding, his curling mustache and little side whiskers faintly redolent of brilliantine. Amused, and not yet uneasy, she mentioned his assiduity to her sister, and thought nothing further of it; nor did Silvette, preoccupied with an episode of her own which threatened to become something approaching a problem. Instinct told her that Jack Rivett preferred her to anybody at Adriutha; and she liked him well enough to find his attention agreeable. But little by little it became more marked—to her, if not to others—and she experienced a slight uneasiness concerning this very rich and idle only son, the ambition of whose father had now become plain to her. So Silvette at first very pleasantly discouraged him, and kept out of tête-à-têtes as much as possible, in which maneuvers she was not very successful. For the girl found in this lazy, witty, good-humored, self-indulgent young fellow a cool and confident adversary—resistless because of his charming manner toward her and his unvarying cheerfulness under rebuffs which were becoming more frequent and more severe—and, alas, more useless. About a week after Inwood’s arrival, while writing a letter in the rose-garden pavilion, a shadow checkered the lattice work and fell across her note paper; and, glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett, hands in his coat pockets, the breeze ruffling his blond hair. [Illustration: "Glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett."] "I’m writing," she said, annoyed. "I’ll sit down on the sundial," he rejoined with a bow and a smile as though accepting a delightful invitation. "But I’ll be writing about two hours," she observed coldly. "Writing about two hours?" he repeated. "But why write about hours at all, dear lady. An hour is an arbitrary division of time, interesting only to the unhappy." "Very witty," she said. "Go and scratch it on the sundial." And she resumed her letter, trying not to be aware of the blond young man seated just outside the summer house, where the sun gilded his hair and the wind mussed it into a most becoming mop. Several times she bit the pearl tip of her penholder, frowning; but he always seemed to catch her eye at such moments, and her deepening frown only produced on his face an expression which was so very humble that it became almost mischievous. "Jack!" He hurriedly rose, and looked all around him among the roses as though eagerly searching for the person who had called him. "_Jack!_" she repeated emphatically. He pretended to discover her for the first time, and hurried joyously to the lattice door. "Jack—you perfect idiot! I want to write, and I simply can’t, with you sitting around in that martyred manner."