"But how did you guess what I wanted most?" "Maybe I did a little head-work to find out." "It's dear of you!" "So long's you think so, I've got no kick coming." She disengaged, drew a pace or two away. "But what made you do it, Charlie?" "Well, I can't afford to have my leading lady out of the cast with a cold." Joan shook her head at him in gay reproof. "Or do you want me to tell you what you know already--that I'm crazy about you?" "Foolish! It's time we were dressing!" But her laugh was fond, and so was the look she threw over her shoulder as she evaded his arms and vanished into her dressing-room. Quard lingered a moment, with a fatuous smile for the panels of the closed door, and wagged his head doggishly. He felt that he was winning ground at a famous rate--the difficulties, the coolness and craft of his antagonist, considered. And in a way he was right, though perhaps not precisely the way he had in mind. Even before his princely gift, Joan had been thinking a great deal about him, and very seriously. Instinctively she foresaw that their relationship could not long continue on its present basis of simple good-fellowship. Quard wasn't the sort to be content at arm's-length: he must either come closer or go farther away, and might be depended upon not to adopt the latter course until the former had proved impracticable. And Joan didn't want him to go farther away. She was positive about this. But she was also very sure that the arm's-length relationship must be abridged only under certain indispensable conditions--decorously--and soon, if at all: else she must be the one to withdraw, lest a worse thing befall her. It was a problem of two factors: Quard's nature and her own; she had herself to reckon with no less than with him; and herself she distrusted, who was no stronger than her greatest weakness. He attracted her. She often caught herself thinking of him as she had thought of no other man--not Matthias, not the Quard of "The Convict's Return," not even Marbridge except, perhaps, for one shameful instant. Something in the lawless, ranging, wanton grain of this man called to her with a call of infinite allure: something latent in her thrilled to the call and answered.... That way lurked danger, disguised, but deadly. They moved on to Greenpoint, thence to Trenton for a week.