“What, not even one kiss from my bride after all these years apart?” Talbot said, banteringly, and she answered, with girlish dignity: “You know although we are married, we are almost strangers to each other,” and Talbot laughed a little as he answered: “Yes, strangers, for we did not even recognize each other when we met upon the sands this afternoon.” He was surprised when she looked steadily at him with those great dark eyes full of blended fire and softness and answered: “You are mistaken, Mr. Strangemore, I knew you as soon as I saw you.” “You knew me, and yet you did not speak. Why was that, Nina?” She had gone over to the corner of the hearth and was standing there with her white arm resting on the low, black marble mantel. He followed her and looked anxiously into her beautiful, pale face for a reply. She answered with outward nonchalance and hidden bitterness: “I really do not know. Perhaps I was disappointed at your failure to recognize Lion and me, or perhaps, I thought that our greetings might well keep a little longer.” “My failure to know you again was a compliment of the highest type,” said Talbot Strangemore. “I had never dreamed that the little girl I left behind me would blossom out into such a rare and radiant maiden. Do not look at me so incredulously, my darling. Indeed, you _are_ beautiful, and in those white robes and real orange flowers you look queen-like, bride-like. Does it not seem to you, Nina, like a new bridal hour?” Carried away by the influence of her marvelous beauty and her strange reserve, he would have continued in the same strain, but the girl did not heed him. She was gazing with horrified eyes at the bride-like robe in which her maid had dressed her. She tore the orange blossoms from her breast and hair and threw them disdainfully upon the floor. “Kitty has done this, and I did not notice! How dared she make me so ridiculous?” she cried, bursting into a torrent of humiliated tears while she hid her shamed face in her hands. Talbot Strangemore suddenly remembered the little girl who had wept so dolorously upon his breast five years ago, and he would have taken her to his arms again but she repulsed him. He retreated to his original position upon the hearth-rug, and stood watching her with puzzled eyes, until, her brief tempest of passion over, she dashed the tears from her cheeks and looked at him half wistfully under the long black fringes of her lashes. “You must blame Kitty, really,” she said, “I--I did not know that I was actually attired as a bride coming to the arms of a husband. You see I was unnerved, agitated, by your sudden coming, and I did not notice what my poor, silly Kitty was putting on me. I am ashamed to think that she has made me remind you of that long past event that you----that I----would both so gladly forget. If you will excuse me I will go and change this inappropriate dress,” and she pulled angrily at the silvery loops of white satin ribbon.