They went out together, and St. Leon watched them from the window, appearing and disappearing among the winding walks, the girl's white figure bending here and there among the gay _parterres_ of flowers, the morning sunshine lighting her waving tresses into splendor. Mrs. Le Roy had given her _carte blanche_ as to the flowers, and she was eagerly filling her hands with the scented beauties. After a little, he remembered that his mother was growing old, and that she must be weary of keeping pace with those light, quick footsteps. He hesitated, and then went out to them. "_Chère maman_, you must be tired," he said. "Sit down here on this garden-seat and rest, and I will take your place with Miss Gordon." Beatrix turned with quick compunction. "Are you tired?" she said, looking at Mrs. Le Roy with the long, curling lashes lifted from her expressive eyes. "I am so sorry. I forgot that it isn't new to you as it is to me. Shall we go in?" "By no means," answered the lady. "I will sit here and rest, and St. Leon shall be your escort." She flashed him a little glance, quickly withdrawn. "Perhaps you wouldn't like," she said. He laughed, and walked on by her side by way of answer, thinking to himself that she was rather prettier than he had thought at first. The wide sun-hat was tilted carelessly back from the fair low brow with its childish fringe of sunny locks, and the dark eyes with their long curling lashes looked darker still by contrast. A soft color had come into her face, and shy smiles of pleasure hovered around her lips. She looked like a child, with the front of her white overskirt held up in her hands and filled with flowers. "Do you like flowers?" he asked her. "I _love_ them," she answered, with a distinct emphasis on the words. "I love them, and I never saw so many and such lovely flowers as you have here." "Then you ought to enjoy your visit to Eden," he said, pleased at her pleasure in his home, and little thinking how she _would_ enjoy that visit--how all the joy and sorrow of her life would date from these summer hours. "Yes, I should enjoy it--I _know that_--only--only--" she said, and paused in confusion. "Only what? Tell me," said St. Leon Le Roy, thinking suddenly of the lover from whom the girl had been torn by her scheming parents. "She is thinking of that fortune hunter--that wretched entanglement," he said to himself, wondering what her next words would be. "Only," she went on with childish frankness, and giving him one of her swift, dark glances, quickly withdrawn, "I am afraid you are--are _angry_ that I have come here!" Oh, wondrous perceptions of innocence! He flushed a little under his handsome brown skin, and pulled nervously at his silky mustache. "Why should you think so?" he queried.