"Let's see. It's nearly midnight, and all this has got to be cleared up and set straight before one. Do be patient with me until a quarter to one, now won't you please?" "I may be busy then." "Oh, come! That's all swank, and you know it. Besides, you do owe me, at least, some little consideration. I don't mean that, exactly--our account's pretty well squared, the way I see it. But, after all, life's a give-and-take affair. Say you'll meet me at a quarter to one." "Well. Where?" He appeared to take thought. "It's got to be somewhere off the beaten track. And you're not afraid of the dark. Would you mind coming as far as the gate on the drive?" "Back there, beyond the trees?" "I mean the gateway to the main road." "I wonder why you want me there, of all places. Oh, never mind!" She forestalled a protest of injured innocence. "I'm not in the least afraid to find out. Yes; I'll be there at a quarter to one." "You're a brick!" Savage declared fervently. "You won't regret being so decent to me. Now I'll run along and be a diplomatist." He cut a light-hearted caper, just to prove he could, slashed the air gaily with his wooden sword, bowed low and skipped round the corner, leaving Sally even more puzzled than before but somehow placated--comforted by a sense of her own consequence conjured up by the way in which apparently she could manage people . . . Savage, for instance. CHAPTER XIV MAGIC For several seconds after Savage had made off Sally delayed there, alone on the empty lawn in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House, doubting what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs. Gosnold; questioning the motive for that furtive meeting which she had surprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote and inconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept in so underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to it and would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the time until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the lights and gaiety of the hall, the supper-room and the veranda, and the romantic, love-sick peace of moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was in a most complicated, distracted, uncertain and unhappy frame of mind. Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and the startled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold--a pallid oval against the dark background of an unlighted window not two feet above Sally's head. She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightly upon the lady's smiling lips. "S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glances right and left. "There's no one here," Sally assured her in tones appropriately guarded. "You've been listening--" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a mischievous twinkle: "I have that!" "You heard--?" "Something--not much--not enough. If you had only been a few minutes later. . ."