"It may shift overnight," she said. "If to-morrow is a magnificent and cloudless day, with just a hint of silver in the horizon blue, then it means a frost and a flight to-morrow night." "And that," he said, "would mean an end to—the roses." "Yes." "An end to anybody sitting out here again this year." "Probably." "So it seems a pity," he went on, "not to enjoy it while we may, Miss Rivett." "I have enjoyed it—for an hour." "You are not very generous." "Why? You may remain another hour if you wish?" she said, smiling. "Alone?" "I was alone during my hour." "I have been alone for an entire year," he said under his breath. "What?" She had heard him, but her abrupt question seemed to have been beaten out sharply from her startled heart. He made no reply; she stood, one hand clasping the chain, not looking at him, conscious of the clamor of her heart. "Miss Rivett," he said, "am I too much of a fool—too hopeless a thing for you to listen to?" "What do you mean?" she said faintly. "I mean that—this night, now, for the first time since I knew you—I can use, decently, honorably, whatever liberty of speech you permit me." Presently her white hand relaxed, the chain slipped through her fingers; she sank down on the swinging seat. After a moment he stepped toward her. She raised her head in the moonlight, and he saw the tears in her eyes. "Christine," he said under his breath. "Are we free to speak to each other?" she faltered. "Thank God, yes!" "Thank God," she whispered. But for a long, long while they did not use the inestimable privilege of free, articulate speech. There seemed to be no need of it further than apparently irrelevant fragments such as, "My darling!" and, "Oh, Billy, if you only knew!" Far away beyond them Diana came out on the terrace with young Wallace, and gazed very earnestly down at the rose garden. "Shall we walk there?" he said persuasively. [Illustration: "’Oh, dear,’ she said, ’there’s somebody down there already.’"] Suddenly Diana’s face sparkled. "Oh, dear," she said, "there’s somebody down there already—two of them! And—and it looks to me as though they were spooning. What a world this is, Mr. Wallace! I think I’d better go in and play bottle pool." That night she wrote to Edgerton: "DEAR JIM: "You have not answered my letter—but men were made to pardon. "Somehow—and I don’t quite know how—that wretched and melancholy Inwood man, fortified by a gentle push from me, contrived to get up sufficient momentum to carry my little Christine by assault. The darling has just been in here to whisper her happiness to me. We wept together, which is our feminine fashion of uttering three cheers. "There is, of course, papa to inform. I don’t envy Christine. Papa has a will of his own, but so has his infant daughter.